Loves Me,
Loves
Me Not

Edited by

Katie Fforde and Sue Moorcroft

Loves Me,
Loves Me Not
Joanna Trollope
Nicola Cornick
Judy Astley
Benita Brown
Jane Gordon-Cumming
Sue Moorcroft
Victoria Connelly
Amanda Grange
Jean Buchanan
Anna Jacobs
Nell Dixon
Liz Fielding
Anita Burgh
Joanna Maitland
Adele Parks
Rita Bradshaw
Elizabeth Bailey
Annie Murray
Jane Wenham-Jones
Rosie Harris
Trisha Ashley
Carole Matthews
Louise Allen
Sue Gedge
Rosemary Laurey
Charlotte Betts
Elizabeth Chadwick
Katie Fforde
Sophie King
Jan Jones
Janet Gover
Maureen Lee
Linda Mitchelmore
Christina Jones
Geoffrey Harfield
Margaret Kaine
Theresa Howes
Gill Sanderson
Debby Holt
Sophie Weston
Katie Flynn
Margaret James
Eileen Ramsay
Diane Pearson

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To the wonderful, talented members of the

Romantic Novelists’ Association

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Romantic Novelists’ Association would like to thank all of its members who contributed to this fabulous anthology. And also, Caroline Sheldon, for her help and support.

FOREWORD by Katie Fforde

I have been a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association since before the dawn of time or before I can remember, anyway. It’s hard to say if I would have become a published novelist without them but I suspect not. Like reading romantic fiction, which has always been what got me through the tough times and still does, the RNA is a constant support. Without them I might well have given up, without them I would never have known the many writers who are now my friends. The joy of my first meeting when I realised I was not the only mad woman in the attic, typing away when I should have been ironing, cooking or generally being a wife and mother, was immense.

Thus, it is a complete pleasure to be asked to be involved with this fabulous anthology. It really is a box-of-chocolates of a book. There is everything in here, whatever your taste. There’s sophisticated chic lit, tender romance—funny stories, scary stories and even fairy stories—and every other sort of story you can think of, including a vampire story.

One of the things I particularly like is it represents the vast range of writers and writing that the RNA embraces and shows the sparkling talent that our organisation represents.

Romantic fiction is a very popular, and demonstrably broad, genre and in here you don’t just get a lot of wonderfully good reads, you get real value for money.

Enjoy—you can dive into this without putting on an ounce!

Rembrandt at Twenty-Two

Joanna Trollope

Joanna Trollope has been writing for over thirty years. Her enormously successful contemporary works of fiction, several of which have been televised, include The Choir, A Village Affair, A Passionate Man and The Rector’s Wife, which was her first number one bestseller and made her into a household name. Since then she has written The Men and the Girls, A Spanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People’s Children, Marrying the Mistress, Girl from the South, Brother and Sister and Second Honeymoon. Her latest novel is Friday Nights. Joanna also wrote Britannia’s Daughters—a non-fiction study of women in the British Empire, as well as a number of historical novels now published under Caroline Harvey. Joanna was awarded the OBE in 1996 for services to literature.

Find out more at www.joannatrollope.com

Rembrandt at Twenty-Two

I promise you, I saw him from the stage. I couldn’t miss him, not the way he was looking at me. I was up there, front row, final chorus, stockings and suspenders, and he was out there, in the stalls, centre, only two rows back. Our eyes met. Well, not just met. Our gazes kind of fused. I’d never known anything like it, and there isn’t a name for it, that kind of attraction, and perhaps there shouldn’t be, because it’s different every time, different for everyone.

Well, of course, he was waiting at the stage door.

He said, ‘Hello, gorgeous.’

I said, ‘You foreign?’

He smiled. He had a fantastic smile. He said, ‘I’m Dutch.’

I said, rudely, because I was so wildly excited, ‘You can’t be. Dutch boys aren’t tall, dark and handsome. Dutch boys are blond and look like potatoes.’

He laughed. Then he kissed me. Can you imagine being kissed by a total stranger and wanting him never to stop? And then we went for drinks, somewhere hot and dark and noisy, and then he said he’d got to go.

‘Go?’

‘To catch a plane.’

‘Where?’

‘Home. Back to Amsterdam.’

‘You can’t, you can’t—’

‘Come, too.’

‘I can’t. I’ve got a show to do—’

‘Come tomorrow.’

‘I can’t—’

‘Come.’

I looked at him. He looked back, like he was looking right into me, like he knew me. Then he picked up a paper serviette and wrote something on it.

‘Meet me there. Sunday. Three p.m.’

I peered at his scribble. ‘Can’t read it—’

‘Meet me,’ he said, ‘in front of my favourite painting. In the Rijksmuseum. Three o’clock Sunday.’

‘I’ve never been to Amsterdam—’

‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Everyone speaks English.’ He leaned forward and kissed me. ‘See you there, gorgeous.’

I said, ‘Can I have your number?’

He took my hands. He said, ‘No need. This is special. This is something else. This is a beginning.’

Of course, I went. I danced myself to a standstill in the Saturday matinee and the evening show, and when I came off stage, Sam, the stage manager, who could do praise as well as he could fly, said, ‘Nice work,’ looking straight at me. And then I went out of the theatre without a word to anyone and got a night bus to Stansted Airport and the first flight out to Amsterdam. I was so high on the thought of seeing him that you could have powered a city off me. Two, maybe.

That energy carried me through the night, through the next morning. It was like surfing a big wave that never quite got to shore. I bought coffee, I bought apple cake, I went brazenly into a big hotel and used the ladies’ room to wash and do my make-up and my hair. I talked to people and he was right, they spoke English, and they smiled, and they talked back to me. And at a quarter to three I was where he told me to be, in this huge old museum, crammed with visitors, standing in front of a painting of a boy with a big mop of frizzy hair and a face like a potato. Zelfportret ca. 1628, it said underneath. Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn at twenty-two. I stared at him. He looked back out of his painting, over my shoulder as if he was waiting for someone.

He had a long wait. No one came. I waited two hours, and my Dutchman never came. I went out and drank gin, which there seems to be a lot of in Amsterdam, and got myself a weird hotel room near the station, and drank and cried and drank and cried until I fell asleep.

I went back the next day, in case he’d said Monday, not Sunday. And then I went back on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. And, on Friday, something clicked in my brain, and I actually registered the messages on my phone, and a different sick fear slid down into my stomach. The fear of being let down was added to by the fear of losing my job.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Sam kept saying. He sounded furious. And then, ‘There are plenty more where you came from. Plenty.’

I don’t really want to talk about that journey home. You can imagine how I felt—we’ve all been there. We haven’t all been as stupid as to go all the way to Amsterdam to get there but we’ve all done the dumped, humiliated, disappointed, how-do-I-go-on thing. I looked at myself in my compact mirror as I sat on the bus from Stansted to London and I thought that nobody would ever fancy me again, and that if I were them I wouldn’t fancy me, either.

I got to the theatre early, about four-thirty, three hours to curtain up and nobody much in yet but the technicians. I went into the big dressing room that all us girls in the chorus shared and to my relief there was no one in there except Monica, who’d been cleaning up and calming down in that dressing room for about a hundred years. We called her Mon and sometimes, when we were tired or upset because we’d fluffed a move or got kicked on stage, we called her Mum by mistake and she never minded.

She was sweeping the floor. Clots of cotton wool and chocolate wrappers and hairballs. She stopped sweeping when I came in.

‘Where’ve you been?’

I slumped in a chair and looked at myself in a mirror with all those light bulbs round it. I said, ‘Amsterdam.’

She leaned her broom against the wall. ‘What for?’

I fished around in my bag and pulled out a postcard. I put it down in front of me. ‘To look at him.’

She came over. She smelled, as she always did, of fags and carnation soap. ‘And?’

‘It’s Rembrandt. When he was twenty-two.’

Monica said, ‘I know about Rembrandt.’

I said, ‘I’ve screwed up. I haven’t got a love life and I’ve lost my job.’

Monica looked at the postcard. ‘Twenty-two. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

She sucked her teeth.

I put my head down on my arms, on Rembrandt. I said, ‘What am I going to do?’

‘When he painted that painting,’ Monica said, ‘he didn’t know his future. Did he? He didn’t know he was going to be the greatest. He just knew he could paint. That he’d got to paint.’

‘I can’t paint,’ I said, into my arms.

‘You can dance,’ Monica said. ‘You can dance better than most of them. You can sing.’

‘Sam won’t let me. Not any more.’

‘You know,’ Monica said, ‘about Samuel Beckett?’

I lifted my head. My eyes and nose were red. ‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘He said, “You try, you fail, you try again, you fail better.” You’ve got to try. You’ve got a future to make. You’ve got to try.’

I sniffed.

‘Get up,’ she said. ‘Get up and get moving. Wash your face. Find Sam.’

Sam was on stage, with the techies. They were fixing something to do with the steps we had to come down, high kicking and singing. There were places where they didn’t feel too solid, those steps, and we used to shove each other about to avoid those places. I went and stood beside Sam. He had a clipboard. He didn’t look at me.

‘Push off,’ Sam said.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move.

‘You heard me,’ Sam said.

‘I’m sorry—’

‘Too late,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve replaced you.’

I said, ‘I’m back.’

‘Without your Dutchman.’

I said, ‘They look like potatoes.’

He wrote something on his clipboard. Then he said, ‘At least I don’t look like a potato.’

I looked at him. He didn’t. He looked fine.

Sam shouted something at the techies. Then he said, ‘Go and get me a coffee.’

I went on looking at him. I said, ‘How d’you know about the Dutchman?’

‘I make it my business to know.’

‘About all of us?’

There was a beat.

‘No,’ Sam said.

‘I brought one back,’ I said. ‘A Dutchman. On a postcard. Rembrandt, when he was twenty-two. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a man so long. I thought he looked like a potato but he doesn’t. He looks great.’

Sam shouted something else. He glanced at me. ‘I think I can cope with a postcard.’

I waited.

‘Go and get me a coffee,’ Sam said again.

‘Please.’

‘Please. Get two coffees.’

‘Two?’

He looked at me, red eyes, red nose, dirty hair. He said, very clearly, ‘Two coffees. One for you. One for me. Scoot.’

I felt my arms moving at my sides, like wings rising. Maybe I was going to hug him. He took a step away.

‘Scoot,’ he said.

‘But Sam—’

‘Scoot!’ he shouted, so all the techies could hear, and then he dropped his voice. ‘Don’t be long,’ he said. He smiled at me. He actually smiled. He had beautiful teeth. ‘Don’t be long.’

The Elopement

Nicola Cornick

Nicola Cornick studied history at London University and Ruskin College, Oxford, earning a distinction in her Masters degree with a dissertation on heroes and hero myths. She has a ‘dual life’ as a writer of historical romance for Harlequin Mills & Boon and a historian working for the National Trust. A double nominee for both the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize and the Romance Writers of America RITA award, Nicola has been described by Publishers Weekly as ‘a rising star of the Regency genre’. Her most recent book, Kidnapped, is available now from M&B Books. Her website is www.nicolacornick.com

The Elopement

It was a fact universally acknowledged in the village of Marston Priors that Amanda, Lady Marston, although young, was the unchallenged arbiter of good manners.

‘For,’ as Mrs Duke said to Mrs Davy, ‘if Lady Marston feels it is inappropriate to travel even the shortest distance in a carriage without one’s personal maid, I am sure that you will never see me defying convention by going out alone.’ Mrs Davy, who could not afford to employ a lady’s maid, agreed glumly.

Amanda Marston woke slowly and luxuriously that morning. She knew that the day was well advanced because Benson had drawn back the curtains and the spring sunshine was drawing out the rich and vivid colours from the beautiful new Axminster carpet. She knew she had an eye for design. It was one of her greatest accomplishments.

The scent of the hot chocolate lured her and she reached out a languid hand for the cup. Her fingers brushed the crisp parchment of a letter and she picked it up, still mulling over whether the bed drapes required refurbishment and whether pale green gauze might look dangerously like a harlot’s boudoir…Not that she knew anything of such things…

She read the first line of the letter with vague attention, the second with concentration and the third with outrage.

My dear Amanda

It is with great pleasure that I can inform you that I have eloped with Mr Sampson. I have always hankered after participating in an elopement so you may imagine my pleasure. I believe that the usual form of words on these occasions is: ‘Pray do not come after us.’ I am of age several times over and know my own mind, so there is no point in either you or Hugo trying to fetch me back. Indeed,

I hope you will both wish me happy.

Your loving grandmother-in-law, Eleanor Pevensey

Amanda shrieked, an action that startled her as much as it did the footman on the landing outside. Amanda never screamed, not even in a ladylike manner over a dead mouse or small spider. She had always considered having the vapours to be a vulgar way of attracting attention. Now, however, she shrieked again.

Lady Pevensey had eloped.

Lady Pevensey was entrusting herself and all her lovely fortune into the hands of a penniless curate.

Of all the outrages perpetrated by her husband’s seventy-seven-year-old grandmother, this was by far the most shocking. Lady Pevensey had been living at Marston Hall for six months and Amanda had found her a serious trial. Lady Pevensey rode to hounds, swore like a trooper and forgot all about visiting hours.

But none of these offences against propriety was as dreadfully scandalous as an elopement.

Amanda actually spilt drops of chocolate on the beautiful linen of her bedclothes. Never had she felt so overset, not even when the silk for her new evening gown had been quite the wrong shade of rose-pink.

She shoved the chocolate cup aside and tumbled from the bed, grabbing her swansdown-trimmed wrap and hurrying to the door that connected her room to that of her husband.

She turned the knob. The door was locked. She remembered that it had not been used in the past six months and only at very irregular intervals in the three years of her marriage. For some reason this state of affairs suddenly made her feel more than a little troubled.

She ran barefoot to the door onto the landing, only to be confronted by the footman, whose Adam’s apple bobbed with shock at the sight of her ladyship en déshabillée. Normally Lady Marston would not emerge from her room until she was immaculately attired. This was unprecedented.

‘Where is Lord Marston?’ Amanda demanded, waving the letter agitatedly in the footman’s face. ‘I require to speak with him immediately!’

The footman boggled. Lady Marston never required to know where her husband was, treating his whereabouts as a matter of utmost indifference. Red to the tips of his ears, he managed to stammer that Lord Marston had breakfasted several hours earlier and, he believed, was out on the estate.

‘Then pray send to find him,’ Amanda snapped, ‘and send for Crockett. At once!’

Choosing her morning outfit was usually one of Amanda’s favourite occupations but this morning she found that the merits of her cherry-red promenade dress or her pale yellow muslin did not interest her. She had grabbed a lilac gown when her maid arrived and dressed with a lack of care that startled the poor woman severely. When Crockett enquired how she would like her hair arranged, Amanda said, ‘I do not have the time!’ scooped up the letter and positively ran down the stairs.

Lord Marston had not yet been found but Amanda remembered vaguely that he had said something about his sheep at dinner the previous night and so she set off towards where she imagined the pastures might be. Following a mixture of bleating and hammering, she located Lord Marston a good mile away, by which time her dainty slippers were ruined and the hem of her lilac gown three inches deep in mud.

Amanda did not notice, however, for as she drew near she realised that it was Hugo himself who was hammering in fence posts. His jacket discarded, his rolled up shirtsleeves revealed strong, bronzed forearms. The muscles moved beneath his skin as he worked with grace and precision. Amanda, who had been about to exclaim over the inappropriateness of her husband undertaking manual work, discovered that her mouth was suddenly dry.

Hugo caught sight of her and straightened. In the spring sunshine his eyes gleamed vivid blue in his tanned face. He rubbed his brow and Amanda saw a drop of sweat run down the strong brown column of his neck. She should feel disgusted but suddenly there was a curl of something quite other than disgust in the pit of her stomach. Why had she never noticed before that Hugo was so attractive?

‘Amanda?’ Hugo came up to her and caught her elbow. The warmth of his hand seemed to burn through the silk of her gown. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

His gaze, normally so inscrutable, slid from the tips of her muddy slippers to her flushed cheeks and lingered on the hair loose about her face. Suddenly there was something speculative and heated in his eyes that made Amanda feel even more light-headed. It was not the sort of look a man should give his wife of three years. She could not remember Hugo ever looking at her like that. It was not respectable. Nor was his bad language. But it seemed incredibly hard to drag her gaze away from his, let alone to correct him.

‘I…um…’ Amanda made a huge effort to remember why she had needed to talk to him. Lady Pevensey. She held out the letter. ‘Your grandmother, Hugo! The most disastrous thing! She has eloped with Mr Sampson! We simply have to stop her.’

Hugo dipped his head over the note, affording her a most enjoyable view of his broad shoulders under the damp linen of his white shirt. He wore an old pair of breeches that Amanda would normally have scorned. But how well they fitted his muscular thighs and what a fine figure he had. She blinked. What on earth was wrong with her? Lady Pevensey’s elopement had overset her nerves, of course, and running around in the sunshine without a bonnet was very bad for her. She needed to lie down in a darkened room.

With Hugo.

The thought slipped into her mind and she was so shocked that she blushed. She saw that Hugo was watching her, a quizzical smile in his eyes. Another curl of excitement lit her blood, only stronger than before. To cover her embarrassment she snapped, ‘Well? What are you going to do, Hugo? Your grandmother has run off with a man half her age!’

The smile did not fade from Hugo’s eyes. ‘I do not think you are quite correct there, my dear. Mr Sampson came late to ordination and I believe he is now in his sixties—’

‘He is still young enough to be her son,’ Amanda said. ‘And that is not the point, Hugo. The point is—’

‘That she is rich and we wanted her money and now there is a danger she will leave it to her new husband instead,’ Hugo finished.

Amanda gaped. ‘How very vulgar you sound!’

Hugo shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Is that not what you meant, Amanda?’

Amanda struggled. ‘Well, I suppose…But I would not have put it so bluntly.’

‘Why not?’ Hugo’s smooth tones seemed to hold the very slightest hint of mockery. ‘We both know that Grandmama’s twenty thousand pounds would be most welcome.’

‘Yes,’ Amanda said, still struggling, ‘but I wish to save her from a terrible mistake.’

‘Rot,’ Hugo said cheerfully. ‘The only mistake you wish to save her from is leaving her money away from us!’

Amanda wondered whether too much fresh air had gone to Hugo’s head. He never normally spoke to her like this. Usually he was courteous to the point of indifference. She felt an unexpected pang at the thought.

‘You are mistaken,’ she said carefully. ‘I do not think it right for Lady Pevensey to marry a man even twenty years her junior.’

‘Because of the scandal.’

‘For her personal happiness!’ Amanda burst out, though admitting to herself that her husband was absolutely right.

‘Oh, I should not worry about that. Sampson is a fit and vigorous gentleman for his years. I imagine he will make her very happy.’

‘Hugo!’ Amanda was appalled, her mind awash with most inappropriate images of Lady Pevensey and her new husband disporting themselves in the bedroom.

‘I mean that they have a shared interest in hunting and the outdoors,’ Hugo said, ‘as well as a lively interest in more academic matters. That is more than many couples can boast. Whatever did you think I meant, Amanda?’

‘Nothing!’ Amanda shook her head slightly, trying to dispel the images and at the same time trying not to take too personally Hugo’s comment about couples who had nothing in common.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘since it seems I cannot persuade you to try to prevent this elopement, Hugo, I shall set out for Gretna Green immediately.’

Hugo gave a crack of laughter. ‘You? You do not even know where Gretna Green is!’

‘The coachman will know,’ Amanda said, finding a temper she did not even know she possessed. ‘Really, Hugo, you are in a strange mood today! I shall travel with Crockett and if we make good time I am sure we may overtake them.’

‘And then what? On whose authority will you send them home?’ Hugo looked highly entertained. ‘You are not dealing with a recalcitrant schoolroom chit, Amanda!’

Amanda, thoroughly annoyed, made to stalk away. By now she was miserably aware of the state of her hem and the soaked material of her slippers. The wind had teased her hair to a haystack and she was cold.

But Hugo caught her hand. It felt warm and comforting but also intimate and exciting. Hugo never normally held her hand.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I cannot permit my wife to travel to Gretna unprotected. I will come with you. If we are fortunate we may even reach Oxford by tonight.’

Amanda was so surprised that she stepped into a puddle. Hugo swung her up in his arms. ‘Hugo!’ Amanda gasped, clutching his forearms, which felt remarkably hard and lean. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Merely helping you over this muddy ground, my dear.’ His breath tickled her ear, sending goose bumps along her neck. Amanda could smell his scent—fresh air and sweat and the faint hint of sandalwood cologne. What could be the matter with her? She had thought that an unwashed male body would repel her rather than making her head spin. It was perhaps fortunate that Hugo’s shoulder was so close. She leaned her head against it and lay quiet all the way back to the house.

Once Amanda had recovered from being carried home she banished her husband to wash and change his clothes and hurried to do the same. There really was no time to waste, no matter how indulgent Hugo felt of his grandmama’s misdemeanours. Hugo was famously—infuriatingly—easy-going, but Amanda knew that Lady Pevensey’s elopement would be the talk of the county. Everyone would whisper and gossip and titter and commiserate and it would be intolerable. Lady Pevensey’s lack of decorum would reflect on her. Her position in Marston Priors might well be under threat. It was not to be borne.

It therefore took her a mere hour and a half to don her travelling gown, instruct Crockett on the packing of her portmanteaux and descend the stairs to find her husband waiting, immaculately dressed in jacket, pantaloons and Hessians. On seeing her, he checked his pocket watch.

‘Less than two hours. And only three cases! You are to be congratulated, my dear.’ His gaze fell on Crockett, attired in a plain cloak and grasping a small bag. ‘Alas, I fear we cannot accommodate your maid, my love. I have had the small carriage prepared for the sake of speed and there is room only for us—and your luggage, of course.’

Amanda halted. ‘But I cannot travel without Crockett! Hugo, it simply isn’t done. She must come!’

‘Nonsense,’ her husband said bracingly, steering her out of the door. ‘What could be more decorous than that you be escorted by your husband? I may act as lady’s maid.’ He gave her a look that Amanda could only think was provocative. ‘I am not inexperienced.’

‘Indeed?’ Amanda’s travelling gown suddenly felt a trifle too hot.

She was still wrestling with her unfamiliar and rather disconcerting awareness of Hugo as the carriage clattered through Marston Priors and onto the toll road as the Wiltshire Downs unrolled around them. She had been in a closed carriage with Hugo many times and had never suffered this affliction. Indeed, she realised, she had taken him for granted.

Brought up from an early age to see the acquisition of a husband as a desirable sign of standing, she had gained her married status at the age of one-and-twenty, a little late because she was particular. Hugo had been easy to reel in and she had thought they were well suited. He was handsome, titled, well connected and wealthy without being extravagantly rich. More importantly, he had an equable humour, he was generous and did not interfere in her running of the household. She had thought, until that moment in the hall ten minutes before, that he would always permit her to have her own way. As for intimate matters—Amanda blushed inwardly but forced herself to think about it—she had been pleased that after their honeymoon Hugo seemed not to want to trouble her with his attentions more than twice a month and latterly not at all. Her mama had explained that a lady must be decorous at all times, particularly in the marriage bed, and Amanda had tried to follow that advice. She had been aware of a disappointing result but had put it from her mind.

Now, though, regarding her husband as he lounged with elegant grace against the cushions, she felt a stab of anger. It seemed quite wrong that he should thwart her in the matter of the maid and, more importantly, that he should be so relaxed when she was in a state of advanced fluster. She had not been herself since seeing him in his shirt and breeches but that could not account for this uncomfortable awareness. After all, she had even seen him with no clothes on at all. But she had looked away, as a lady should. Heat and agitation made her shift on the seat and Hugo looked politely concerned.

‘Are you quite well?’

‘I feel a little strange,’ Amanda admitted. ‘I think I am anxious because we set off in such a rush.’

‘Of course,’ Hugo murmured, his bright blue gaze fixed on her in a manner that made the breath catch in her throat.

‘Tell me about your sheep.’ Amanda searched desperately for a distraction from her curious feelings. ‘Last night at dinner you said that you wished to buy a flock of a different breed.’

Hugo looked surprised. ‘I thought you were not attending. I was not aware that you had an interest.’

Amanda had, in fact, very little curiosity about sheep but she was prepared to express an interest in just about anything if it helped lessen the strangely intense atmosphere between them. And, after a while, she forgot she was indifferent to her husband’s interests. They chatted about everything from Hugo’s improvements to the estate to the literature preferred by Amanda as first Wantage and then Abingdon were passed, with a change of horses and some refreshment in both towns. There was no sign of Lady Pevensey and her beau, although an elderly lady eloping with a curate would surely seem noteworthy, and although they asked at every post house they reached Oxford with no news. Between Oxford and Banbury Amanda fell asleep and woke to discover that she was resting her head on Hugo’s shoulder and his arm was about her. She raised her face to see him smiling down at her as he smoothed the tumbled hair away from her face.

‘I do not recall you ever venturing out without your hair in some sort of complicated arrangement,’ he commented, toying with the end of the ribbon that held her curls. ‘This is vastly more becoming and I am less likely to be stabbed by some ornament when I am close.’

The carriage lurched to a stop and he kissed her lightly before releasing her and moving to open the door.

‘Where are we?’ Amanda stammered, disconcerted to feel her lips tingle from the imprint of his.

‘At the King’s Head in Banbury. I will bespeak a room for the night.’

It was only when the groom was helping her down that Amanda realised he had said one room rather than two and prickles of excitement and apprehension raced through her. But when the landlady had shown them up the stairs to the spotlessly clean bedchamber, she found her husband as adamant on the subject of the room as he had been on the subject of the maid.

‘Two rooms?’ A dangerous light lurked in his eyes. ‘Out of the question, my love. Although this is a most respectable inn, I could not endanger either your life or your virtue by leaving you alone. You must sleep with me and then you will be quite safe.’

‘You must sleep in the chair,’ Amanda argued, panic building in her throat as Hugo slipped off his coat and loosened his neck cloth. He seemed so at ease, so confident, so thoroughly in control. It was making her nervous.

He laughed. ‘Have a heart, my sweet! I have lurched over bad roads all day on a wild goose chase. The least you can do is let me share your bed. I am your husband and it is perfectly respectable.’

It felt quite improper to Amanda, unaccustomed to such close proximity with her husband, but he pressed a glass into her hands and she did not argue. The wine had been warmed and it tasted strong and sweet. Amanda felt the colour bloom in her cheeks and delicious warmth spread through her. The knot of tension inside her started slowly to unravel.

The landlady brought a rich beef stew into their private parlour. Amanda was surprised to discover it tasty. She was yawning, which was unforgivably rude, but when she tried to apologise Hugo only laughed and filled her glass again. By the time the meal was over she was almost asleep and her elbow kept sliding off the table. Eventually Hugo scooped her up and carried her through to the bedchamber.

‘You seem to have been sweeping me off my feet all day,’ Amanda whispered, aware that she was now extremely cast away and that the room was spinning slowly. She looked up into his face and could see the shadow of every individual eyelash cast against the hard line of his cheek. She raised a hand and ran her fingers over his cheek, fascinated by the roughness of his stubble. His eyes closed and she saw a muscle tighten beneath her caress, but then he set her down and started to unfasten her gown with brisk, impersonal movements. She felt his fingers against the nape of her neck, then lower, down her back. The gown eased and she stepped out of it, feeling abruptly and overwhelmingly shy. Gently, he sat her on the bed and knelt to remove her shoes and to roll down her stockings. The candlelight was in his blue eyes, his expression intent and serious and Amanda’s stomach dropped with longing and a feeling she identified, with absolute amazement, as lust.

She must have made a small sound, for he looked up and their eyes locked for a long moment. There was a hard, bright light in his that made her feel quite faint and then—she was never sure how it happened and afterwards she did not care—he rolled her on the bed and his hands were in her hair and she was reaching for him with a fever that equalled his own. He kissed her as though he was starving and she kissed him back and her ribbons and laces were wrenched apart and his clothes were thrown on the floor and they came together exultantly, desperately, with love and lust and no thought for propriety until they lay panting and astonished in each other’s arms.

Afterwards, when she had slept for a little and they had made love again more slowly, Amanda smiled to see her three portmanteaux, packed with respectable night clothes, sitting superfluously in the corner of the room.

‘You promised that it would be perfectly proper for you to share my bed,’ she said, ‘but that was decidedly improper.’

She felt Hugo’s chest move as he laughed. ‘I cannot dispute that. Did you like it?’

‘Yes!’ There was a great deal to be said for bursting out of the restraints of propriety. ‘I cannot think why I did not do that before. It was so much more fun when I join in.’

Hugo laughed again. ‘For me, too.’ He shifted so that he could look at her. ‘I am sorry, Manda.’ His affectionate use of her pet name made her smile. ‘I knew that you had been brought up to believe that physical intimacy was to be tolerated rather than enjoyed and I did not make sufficient effort to persuade you to a different point of view.’ He ran a hand over her bare shoulder and she shivered. ‘I was disappointed that you did not seem to want me and so I withdrew from you when I should have talked.’

Amanda snuggled closer. ‘I am sorry, too, Hugo. I was young and foolish and I thought that to catch a husband was the end of the process rather than the beginning.’

Hugo smiled. ‘We have wasted a lot of time.’

‘Yes, but we can make up for it.’ She kissed him. ‘How far is it to Gretna Green?’

‘Too far,’ Hugo said. ‘Rather than trying to prevent my grandmother from marrying again, I would rather return home and invest the time in getting to know my own wife properly.’

Amanda smiled. ‘I would like that extremely.’ She rubbed her fingers gently over his chest. ‘I love you, Hugo. In that respect I am happy to follow my mama’s advice that it is quite appropriate to have an affectionate regard for one’s husband.’

‘I love you, too.’ Hugo rolled over to kiss her properly.

‘Manda,’ Hugo said, as the carriage rolled back through the gates of Marston Hall next day, ‘I have something to confess.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Grandmama has not gone to Gretna. She is marrying Mr Sampson at Bath Abbey on the twenty-third of this month. She would very much like us to be there. She left me a note yesterday, too.’

Amanda stared. ‘But if you knew that, why on earth did you let us set out for Gretna…?’ She stopped.

‘I am sorry,’ Hugo said, smiling so charmingly that Amanda’s indignation started to melt like ice in the sun. ‘If you re-read the note that Grandmama left you, you will see that she never mentioned Gretna at all. When you made that assumption—and when you appeared not indifferent to me—I was determined to take the opportunity to try to mend matters between us.’ He smiled. ‘I would have gone all the way to Scotland if I needed to, Manda. You are that important to me.’

Amanda started to laugh until the tears rolled down her face and her stomach ached with great gales of mirth that her mother would surely have thought most unbecoming. When the coach drew up on the gravel she grabbed Hugo’s hand and dragged him into the hall.

‘You owe me something for that deception,’ she whispered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. His arms went about her.

‘Anything, my love.’

Then both of them became aware, somewhat belatedly, of the presence of Mrs Duke and Mrs Davy, who had evidently called only a few moments before and were studying their amorous embrace with horrified expressions.

‘Mrs Davy, Mrs Duke!’ Hugo said. ‘I do apologise. Is it visiting time? Alas, Amanda is exhausted from our travels and needs to lie down immediately. As do I.’

And he carried his wife up the sweep of the stair and closed the bedroom door very firmly behind them.

Speed Limit

Judy Astley

Judy Astley started writing in 1990, following several years of working as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. Her sixteen novels, the most recent of which are Laying the Ghost and Other People’s Husbands, are all published by Transworld/Black Swan. Judy’s specialist areas, based on many years of hectic personal experience, are domestic disharmony and family chaos with a good mix of love-and-passion and plenty of humour thrown in.

Judy has been a regular columnist on magazines and enjoys writing journalism pieces on just about any subject, usually from a fun viewpoint. She lives in London and Cornwall, loves plants, books, hot sunshine and rock music—all at once, preferably—and would happily claim that listening in to other people’s conversations is both a top hobby and an absolute career-necessity. Visit Judy’s website at www.judyastley.com

Speed Limit

X. Ex. At risk of getting a frostbitten bum, I sit on the low wall outside the town hall and look up at the brilliant blue winter sky where the vapour trails from a pair of aircraft have left a big white cross. It looks like a huge celestial kiss—a pair of in-love angels, perhaps? No, too fanciful, get real, Claire, I tell myself. It’s just a couple of distant planes criss-crossing the globe above us. I think—briefly—of the bliss of a kissed X contrasted with the pain implicit in the term ‘Ex’. Sad that these two sound so alike and yet…and yet. But it’s all right. I’m now safely over my own Ex—cheating rat—though maybe not quite ready to hurtle fullon into another relationship. So silly, so hasty, I gave that one a go way too soon, pretty much straight after the break-up. Lovely Max, set up for me by well-meaning friends who embraced the ‘get back on the horse’ philosophy, was a delight—we got on so well and it was obvious there was real romance-potential there…but, oh, please, not yet, I thought at the time, running scared. That suddenness of being ‘with’ someone again so quickly after the drawn-out end to a five-year marriage gave me an out-of-control rushed feeling, a certainty that I’d whizzed from the hurt of loss directly to risking it all happening again without pausing for breath. Good grief, I’d barely got used to losing custody of the wedding present toaster.

Several dates in, I didn’t at all like turning down Max’s out-of-the-blue offer of a weekend in Barcelona but I heard my newly discovered cautious side suggesting to him that we slow down, take some time out and just be friends for a while. Trouble is, everyone assumes there is an underlying message in that particular line, and it’s not a positive one. I liked Max a lot and he liked me—so he gave me what I’d asked for: space, solitude and time to think. Under other circs Max-and-me could have been…well, who knows? I certainly won’t know, not now, not with him—the ‘space’ drifted into weeks, now months. I suppose it was too much to hope, after I’d effectively dumped him—and, oh, how teenage that sounds!—that he’d be OK with the occasional no-strings drink and a bag of nuts at the pub when we could have been strolling down Las Ramblas in the Catalan sunshine and getting cosy over tapas and Rioja.

It’s a shame you can’t put potential lovers in a cupboard for a few months, then get them out when the previous livid emotional scars have thoroughly healed. He must have thought I was a completely hopeless case, wittering on about wanting to try being alone, needing to Get To Know Myself. All rubbish really. A few months on from that moment of Being Sensible and I can tell you that existing determinedly on your own is highly overrated. What’s so great about being in sole charge of the TV remote? Who needs quite that much spreading-out space in bed? And, as the song doesn’t actually go: if I don’t know myself by now…

‘Hurtling’, by the way, is the reason why I’m here, a bit early, waiting to join a half-day Speed Awareness class and learn how Not To Drive Too Fast. As an alternative to points on my licence it’s likely to be a few hours well-spent. I had no excuse: being caught on a speed camera doing thirty-five m.p.h. in a thirty limit was bang-to-rights, even if it was a deserted dual carriageway, late at night, running my fox-bitten cat to the emergency vet. Sorry—did I say no excuses? We’ve all got our stories.

It’s time to go in and I check in with the jolly-looking organiser in an anteroom full of sheepish-looking fellow law-breakers. Slightly nervously, we smile at each other; someone makes a quip about us being in detention like naughty schoolchildren, and our ‘teacher’ grimaces and mutters, ‘There’s always one…’ I sense he’s got a running bet with himself about how many minutes into the proceedings some wag would come up with that one.

But it is like being in class, and we all sit in rows at desks with a computer each. Apart from a scurrying latecomer who whooshes unseen into a seat at the back, we’re all quiet and concentrating. The first part of the session is all mouse-clicking—on the computer screen there is a video in which we’re ‘driving’ a car; we have to click when we feel too close to the car in front. Appropriately enough, I’m pretty sure I’m being too cautious here—I want to keep a good safe distance. Same with the speed test: I want to slow the virtual car right down. I smile to myself, thinking how like my life this is, these days. Having raced into a young marriage, the first of my group of mates to go for the full-scale meringue frock and multi-layered cake event, now look at me: avoiding a new closeness the moment it comes my way. Oh, well, no point brooding—right here, if I’m not careful, I’ll score nul points for being easily distracted.

We do hazard perception next. The video has me driving in a variety of scenarios, inner city through to country lanes. I clock the cyclist, the horse-rider, the schoolchildren, the skateboarder, an ambulance, some elderly ladies. Click, click, click goes my mouse but there doesn’t seem to be an option for ‘possible love interest’ lurking in those on-screen streets. Perhaps they aren’t such a hazard after all. Too late now anyway, I tell myself. I mean, I could call Max, obviously, or send him a cheery email, but what’s he going to assume this time? That I’m fickle and flighty? That I’m ditsy and dithering? And of course he won’t be free anyway—you don’t get many delightful, attractive, entertaining, unattached men like him to the pound—it would be his turn to back right off. Who wants to line themselves up for a definite ouch? If we’re talking risks and hazards here today, I think I’ll pass on that particular one.

We’ve had our talk on speed limits and been reminded about Highway Code points that a lot of us had forgotten about since our driving test days. I pick up my bag and coat and say goodbye and thanks to the class tutor.

‘Claire—I thought it was you!’ And there he is—the class latecomer was, oh, heavens…Max, almost as if I’d ‘thought’ him into existence. ‘I’m surprised to see you here, Ms Careful!’ he teases as we walk together towards the street door.

‘Oh, well, you know, I just took it a bit fast on a vet run one night. Emergency, but no excuse, I know!’ I explain, heart pounding, words tumbling madly. ‘What about you?’

‘Ah, it was by the roadworks up near the airport. I was on my way back from…’

‘Barcelona?’ I interrupt, too fast. I can’t understand this heartsink feeling inside. Did he go there with someone else? I’m shocked at how much the very idea hurts. We only went out together for a few months—what proprietary rights do I have over one flippant weekend suggestion? None at all, I tell myself firmly, trying not to picture him with a stunning blonde and a guidebook, discussing the finer points of Gaudi’s architecture.

‘Dropping my sister off at Terminal Five, actually!’ He laughs. ‘And if you feel like risking it with a criminal driver, could I offer you a lift home?’

I feel embarrassed, flustered—he’s laughing at me now, for the Barcelona comment. What a giveaway, what an idiot I am! Which part of careful/slow/risk-free was that particular little gaffe?

We collect his scarlet Toyota from the car park and he pulls out onto the main road.

‘Bearing in mind the class we just did, I’ll take it very, very slowly,’ Max assures me.

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Well within the speed limit, then.’

Are we talking about driving? Something tells me we’re not, entirely. I sense it’s not just me who’s trying not to laugh.

‘Absolutely,’ he replies. ‘And, if you’ve got time, I don’t suppose you fancy a spot of lunch?’

‘That,’ I tell him, ‘would be lovely. Where do you suggest?’

‘I know a lovely little bodega.’ He’s teasing me, smiling wickedly. ‘Perfect tapas, a delicate little Rioja…’

‘Sounds perfect—where is it? Is it local? It’s not…’

He laughs properly now, reading my daft, crazy thoughts.

I glance up through the windscreen—the X hasn’t quite faded from the sky. Or maybe it’s a new one—hard to tell. I could say that all across the planet the sky must be full of kisses, or I could go with superstition and decide it’s a Sign.

‘No, Claire, it’s not Barcelona! Just off the High Street is a bit more down-to-earth, I’m afraid. But who knows? One day.’

‘Yes, who knows?’ I say as his hand brushes against mine. ‘Maybe some day…’

Save the Last Dance for Me

Benita Brown

Benita Brown trained as an actress but after marriage and four children she switched to a writing career. At first she wrote for radio, then girls’ and teenage story papers such as Mandy, Judy, Jackie and Blue Jeans. She wrote her first contemporary romantic novel as Clare Benedict when the youngest of her children was poised to go to university. There were six more Clare Benedict novels before she changed genre and began to write under her own name. The Benita Brown novels are regional sagas and the first nine are set in Tyneside in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. One of these, Fortune’s Daughter, was long listed for the RNA Major Award. Her latest novel, The Starlet, moves forward in time to 1946. It is the story of Carol Marshall, a small town girl who wins a talent competition and begins a career in films. For more information about Benita and her novels visit www.benitabrown.com

Save the Last Dance for Me

When Laura and Raymond took to the floor other couples would stop dancing to watch. The girls’ expressions were wistful as they imagined themselves in Raymond’s arms. But the men had eyes only for Laura. They were totally enraptured.

She was lovely. Dark hair, blue eyes and as slim-waisted as Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. I was the perfect foil for her—tall, with mousy hair, and pretty enough without being beautiful.

Laura and I had been friends ever since our first week at school when she had lost the shilling her mother had given her for the Penny Bank and I had given her sixpence of my own. I can’t remember if she ever repaid me but I wouldn’t have cared because I was thrilled to be the chosen friend of the most popular girl in the class.

Raymond and Bill had struck up a friendship when they had been posted to the RAF station to the north of the town near the lighthouse. Bill was from a farming family in Yorkshire but, the youngest of five sons, he wasn’t needed for the war effort. No one knew what Raymond’s job had been but it had got around that if it wasn’t for the war he’d have been in films. He was certainly good-looking enough; in his flying officer’s uniform he looked sensational.

That first night Laura had pretended not to notice them. She went on talking as if she wasn’t perfectly aware that they were coming towards us across the empty floor. Just as the music started Raymond coughed gently to attract Laura’s attention. She turned and looked up at him with those dark-fringed blue eyes. He didn’t speak. He simply held out his hand. When she took it he pulled her gently onto the dance floor.

Bill had been standing behind and he turned to watch them go. After a moment he looked at me and grinned. He asked me to dance and I accepted. I might have realised, even then, that I would not have been his first choice.

From that moment we were a foursome. Bill, tall, rangy and nice-enough looking with hair as mousy as my own, but nowhere near as handsome as Raymond with his dark hair and laughing grey eyes. The four of us went to the pictures together or for walks along the promenade, but most of all we went to the Roxy.

I was hurt that Laura didn’t tell me first. Surely she could have trusted me not to let the cat out of the bag? She and Raymond took to the floor that night with her left hand resting gracefully on his shoulder. But there was something different about it. First one, then another, and soon every one of the girls swirling by noticed the engagement ring. The band kept on playing but the dancing stopped and the girls gathered round to admire the sparkling diamond while the young men slapped Raymond on the back and called him a lucky devil.

There was already an air of exhilaration. The allies were advancing on Berlin and everyone was convinced that the war in Europe would soon be won. Down at the Roxy, the music seemed more upbeat, the dancers more animated, and all the talk was about what we would do when the war was over.

Laura didn’t want to wait. Her parents owned Seacrest, a small hotel on the seafront. Her father, Ted, said he was sure he could manage a respectable reception and her mother, Thelma, made a wedding dress from one of her old evening gowns. She also found something for me because, of course, I was going to be Laura’s bridesmaid.

But a couple of weeks before the wedding Bill came to see Laura. We were in the lounge of the Seacrest, where we often met before going to the Roxy. Bill bought the drinks and we sat with Laura between us on the banquette behind one of the tables.

‘Where’s Raymond?’ she said.

I saw Bill’s knuckles whiten as he clasped his glass. ‘Laura, I’m sorry…’

‘What is it?’ She sounded frightened.

‘Raymond didn’t make it home from the mission last night. I saw him go down somewhere over Holland.’

A shocked silence—and then Laura started to cry. It was Bill who held her until the storm of weeping subsided.

Raymond was posted missing, presumed dead. And over the next few weeks Laura’s grief turned to anger and her anger into a feverish urge to live life to the full.

‘Take my advice, Jeannie, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. And that’s from the Bible,’ she said when I tried to persuade her to live less hectically.

There were any number of young airmen who lived by the same principle, and who could blame them? They were risking their lives almost daily. They were good-natured, high-spirited and brave. And something about their uniforms made them positively glamorous. Many queued to dance with Laura, although none could match Raymond.

But Laura had forgotten what it was like to be without a man of her own. It was inevitable that she would eventually settle for one of them. And the lucky man just happened to be Bill.

I never found out what Laura did with Raymond’s ring, but the next time she got engaged I was the first to be told. She said that she knew I was fond of Bill and she’d thought it best to tell me herself so that I could be prepared before the announcement.

‘Kind of her!’ my mother said that night when I wept at the kitchen table. Dad shook his head and quietly retreated.

‘And she actually asked you to be her bridesmaid!’ my mother exclaimed. And then she surprised me. ‘Well, listen, our Jeannie, I hope you said that you’d be delighted.’

I stopped crying and looked up in astonishment.

‘You think I should?’

‘It might stop the tongues wagging.’

I knew what she meant. Everyone was wondering whether I would be heartbroken, angry, never speak to Laura again. My mother, wise as usual, thought the best way to prevent all speculation, whether spiteful or sympathetic, was for me to act as though I was pleased for Laura and I hadn’t really cared that much for Bill.

Tongues did wag, but about Laura, not me. There were many who thought she was marrying in indecent haste and that maybe she should have mourned a little longer for Raymond. But that sort of thing happened in those days. Blame the war.

Bill did the gentlemanly thing, by the way. I found him waiting for me outside work one day and he walked me home. He said, ‘I hope you understand. After all, we haven’t been more than good friends, have we? I’ll always be fond of you but, with Laura, it’s entirely different.’

So Laura and I wore the dresses her mother had made after all. When the bride and groom opened the dance everyone applauded, but then fell silent, remembering. Was it fanciful to imagine Raymond’s ghost following the bride and groom round the floor?

The war in Europe ended in May. VE Day was celebrated with street parties, a civic bonfire on the links and a gala night at the Roxy. There were tears of joy for those who had returned and sorrow for those who never would. And of course there were families who had to wait another three months before the war in the Far East ended.

Bill was one of the lucky ones who was demobbed quite soon and he took Laura to Australia where an uncle had a sheep farm. Bill didn’t think that raising sheep in the Antipodes could be very much different from raising sheep in the Yorkshire Dales.

Ever since she had left school Laura had helped her parents in the hotel. Ted and Thelma were upset, not only because their daughter was leaving to live at the other side of the world but because they had imagined that Bill and Laura would stay and take over the running of the hotel one day. But they wished them well.

Nothing much changed for me. I continued working in the shoe department of the Co-op, trying to make my window displays exciting with the never changing supplies of clogs—no coupons needed—and wedge-soled shoes.

The lads stationed at the air base began to leave and the town’s own servicemen started coming home. There were some tearful farewells and some worried reunions but nights at the Roxy went on pretty much as before, except there were fewer people in uniform.

The King, in his Christmas broadcast, spoke of the dark days we had lived through and of the joys of being together at last to share the things we found most precious. But also of those who would never return and how we would remember them with pride; how we must pray that these brave men and women had found everlasting peace. I found myself wondering what kind of peace Raymond had found.

It was spooky, really, how it happened. One night in January the band at the Roxy was playing the Dick Haymes hit Laura, a slow and smoochy number. My partner was Ron, the gangling lad from the bacon counter. The glitter ball was spilling its usual magic that softened faces and hinted at unspoken dreams.

Carried away, I found myself thinking of Laura, my beautiful friend, who had waltzed off with my beau, and yet she still had a place in my heart. For a moment I forgot my partner’s two left feet and his nervous grin. I was back in the days when Laura and Raymond had held us all spellbound with their dancing.

Then I became aware that some of the dancers had stopped and that they were all looking in the same direction, shocked.

Forgetting that I was supposed to let my partner lead, I steered him through the crowd until I could see. And then I gripped the poor lad’s arms so fiercely that he yelped with pain. Raymond was there.

Perfectly still, he stared into the crowd. As his gaze roamed over the couples he grew more and more agitated. The band had become aware that no one was dancing and had stopped playing. I pushed poor Ron rudely aside.

In the silence Raymond noticed me. ‘Where is she?’

I took his hand and I led him away from the dance floor and into the foyer.

When I collected my coat from Hilda, the cloakroom attendant I saw a battered suitcase resting on the counter.

‘It’s his,’ Hilda said, nodding towards Raymond, her eyes round with wonder. ‘Still a smashing-looking lad, isn’t he? Even in that awful-looking demob suit.’

I put on my coat, picked up Raymond’s suitcase and took his arm. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say and he must have sensed my confusion.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I knew she wasn’t here. I suppose I just didn’t want to believe it.’

‘Where are you staying?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I thought maybe Ted and Thelma would put me up at the Seacrest but they couldn’t show me the door quick enough.’ He smiled dejectedly. ‘I expect I’d better find somewhere for the night.’

‘That’s all right,’ I told him. ‘You’re coming home with me.’

My mother was in the kitchen, concentrating on the pan of milk heating for cocoa. She didn’t lift her eyes when she heard the back door open. ‘My, you’re home early.’

The silence must have alerted her for at last she turned. ‘Good God. Raymond.’

In that split second of inattention the milk rose in the pan and would have boiled over if I hadn’t rushed forward and lifted it from the heat.

‘Well, shut the door, then,’ my mother said. ‘You’ll want some supper.’

Raymond looked bemused but he sat at the kitchen table while my mother warmed up what was left of the soup we’d had earlier. Her eye fell on his suitcase.

‘You’d best go and make up the bed in the spare room,’ she told me. ‘Although I’d better warn you, lad,’ she said to Raymond, ‘it’s cold in there.’

This brought the first smile to Raymond’s face. ‘I think I can cope with that.’

I hurried upstairs to get clean sheets from the airing cupboard, all the while thinking of everything other than a cold bedroom that Raymond might have had to endure since I’d last seen him.

Down again, I found my father in the kitchen drinking his cocoa. We sat together, a comfortable gathering, although Raymond was quiet.

‘Well, then,’ my mother said when we had finished. ‘I’ll leave you to wash the dishes, our Jeannie. Don’t stay up too long, will you?’

Despite my mother’s instruction, we talked well into the early hours.

I think it was something to do with my mother’s matter-of-fact way of greeting him, but by now Raymond had thawed a little. ‘No one else survived the crash. By some fantastic fluke I was flung clear with hardly a scratch on me. I felt so guilty.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I was the pilot, wasn’t I? And they couldn’t even trust me to get them home safely.’ He stared down at the table. ‘A Dutch family found me. By then the plane was burning. They dragged me away. Took me in. I couldn’t speak, not even to thank them.’

‘Shock?’

‘Maybe. They hid me until the war ended, then they handed me over to the British army. I was sent to a military hospital near Cologne. I still couldn’t speak. They thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. I had difficulty in remembering my own name. I think I was trying to escape from who I was.’

He looked up suddenly. ‘Do you think that’s crazy?’

‘No.’

‘Then the nurses arranged a dance. They dragged along anyone who could walk and some who couldn’t. The band began to play. And I remembered Laura.’

Now it seemed as if he couldn’t stop talking. All his memories of that time rushed out. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep.

The next day, Sunday, my mother said we should let Raymond have a lie-in. I helped Mum prepare the vegetables and then I went down to the Seacrest.

Thelma was serving breakfasts but the only guests were a middle-aged couple and their airman son who had just been demobbed. So I sat at one of the empty tables with a cup of coffee. Every now and then Laura’s mother gave me a nervous glance. When the guests left the dining room she joined me. ‘I can guess why you’re here.’

‘What did you do with his letters?’

She wasn’t prepared for that. ‘Letters?’ She tried to sound surprised.

‘Raymond wrote to Laura, he never got an answer.’ I stared at her and she couldn’t meet my gaze.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I mean, some letters did come but it was too late. We didn’t want to upset her.’

I leaned back and studied her, obviously wanting to escape but not knowing how to do it with any semblance of dignity.

The night before, Raymond had told me that as soon as his troubled mind had gained some equilibrium he had written both to his mother and Laura. Very soon he’d had an answer from his family solicitor regretting to inform him that his mother had passed away not long after receiving the news of his plane being shot down.

‘My mother was all alone,’ Raymond said. ‘My father died some years ago.’

‘How dreadful.’ I reached across the table and took his hands.

‘But Laura never replied to my letters. I was frantic. I thought she might have died in an air raid. I tried to persuade the powers that be to release me—compassionate grounds and all that—but they said I was mentally unstable. In the end a wise nursing sister pointed out to them that it was not knowing what had happened to my fiancée that was making me unstable. Grudgingly they agreed. So I came here and they told me that she had gone—had married someone else. She hadn’t waited.’

‘But you were—’

‘Posted missing, presumed dead. Presumed dead. She didn’t wait very long to find out if I’d really kicked the bucket, did she?’

There was a silence as we stared at each other. ‘Did Thelma tell you who Laura married?’

He returned the pressure of my hands and smiled at me sadly. ‘She married Bill. I’m sorry, Jeannie.’

I couldn’t speak; I just held on to his hands. He seemed equally reluctant to let mine go.

‘Thelma told me that my letters had never arrived but I’m not sure whether I believe her.’

And that was why I was sitting in the dining room of the Seacrest the next morning. My silence must have prompted Thelma to try and justify herself.

‘Listen, Jeannie,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t put Laura through all that again. I mean, she’d found a good man in Bill and to call the wedding off at that stage would have been too much for her.’

‘How can you say that?’ I shook with anger. ‘To find out that her fiancé, the man she loved, was still alive, how could that be too much to bear?’

‘Because by then she’d given her heart to Bill.’

‘Given her heart? Do you believe that?’

‘Why else would she marry him?’

There was nothing I could say. I could hardly tell her that some folk thought Laura was so determined to be married that almost anyone would do. I believed that Laura had been genuinely heartbroken and that Bill had been kind and understanding and that it had been entirely understandable for her to clutch at his support.

But as Thelma and I faced each other over the table I remembered what Raymond had said the night before. She didn’t wait very long to find out if I’d really kicked the bucket, did she?

I got up to go. Thelma hurried after me.

‘Jeannie, you’re not going to do anything, are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re not going to write to Laura and tell her that Raymond has turned up, are you?’

‘No, I won’t write.’ She needn’t have worried. After one or two letters, Laura had stopped writing to me. I’d had enough pride not to pursue the matter.

‘Good girl.’

Thelma tried to embrace me but I pulled away and hurried out of the hotel and along the seafront to the cries of the gulls and the waves crashing on the shore.

I expected that Raymond would go home—wherever home was—but he didn’t.

‘What is there to go back for?’ he said. ‘My mother’s dead, I have no brothers or sisters, my father’s business was sold some time ago. There’s still some money owing to me and I’ll tell the solicitor to sell the house. But I’ll have to find a job.’

It was my lunch hour and we were sitting in Vicky’s Tea Rooms having poached eggs on toast.

‘Will you go back to acting?’

Raymond looked astonished. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Acting. I mean you were on the stage, weren’t you, and about to go into films?’

‘I was a photographer. I worked for my father’s small studio but when he died I became a sort of freelance. I wasn’t much good with the sort of posed family portraits my father did. I suppose I wanted more action.’

‘But we all believed that when the war began you had been on the point of becoming a film star.’

Raymond smiled. ‘Blame Laura. I was vexed when I discovered that’s what she was telling people but I didn’t want to embarrass her by putting things straight.’

‘But how could she have got that idea?’

‘I’d been commissioned by an agency to do some head and shoulder portraits of young hopefuls that were to be sent round the casting directors. The agent told me that I looked like film star material myself and offered to sign me up. So the story she put about wasn’t exactly a lie.’

‘Would you like to be a film star?’

‘I’d hate it. I’m much happier behind the camera.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘I might try my luck over there.’ He nodded towards the window.

I turned my head and saw he was looking at the local newspaper office.

I wished him luck and hurried back to work. Clouds were gathering and I could smell rain. But despite the dark clouds my spirits soared. I couldn’t understand why I was so happy until I realised that it was because Raymond, who could have gone anywhere he pleased, had decided to stay here.

My mother said Raymond could lodge with us until he was ‘on his feet’ and we all tried to get back to a normal existence. The first time Raymond came with me to the Roxy I could see that everyone felt awkward. But gradually the mood relaxed and we were treated as part of the crowd.

Raymond made a quick trip back to his old home in Elstree. He cleared the house and then handed the keys over to the solicitor. He didn’t bring much back; only his clothes, a couple of cameras and several boxfuls of photographs.

The local paper didn’t take him on straight away. They gave him some unpaid assignments as a trial. One or two of his photographs appeared in the paper, then he was told to try and write words to go with them. They called it ‘copy’.

Eventually they gave him the verdict. That evening after tea he was very quiet. It was my mother who was brave enough to ask him what had happened. Raymond looked grave.

‘Well, they said my photographs were all right.’

‘Only all right?’ Dad asked.

Raymond nodded, looking down at his plate so we couldn’t see his expression. Then he suddenly looked up and grinned. ‘But they said my writing was first class.’

We all looked at each other, completely baffled.

‘So?’ Mum said. ‘Are they giving you a job or not?’

‘They are, but not the job I applied for. They’ve offered me a job as a reporter. I start next week.’

Well, Mum got her bottle of sweet sherry from the sideboard and we all drank to his success. But the smiles faded when Raymond said that he wouldn’t be taking advantage of our kindness for much longer. He intended to find a flat. Mum told him there was no need for that and Dad said he was welcome to stay, but Raymond said that he might be working awkward hours and he didn’t want to inconvenience us. We could see that he’d made up his mind to go and I was completely unprepared for how desolate that made me feel.

I cleared the table and hurried into the kitchen. I was surprised when Raymond followed me and shut the door.

‘I don’t need your help,’ I said waspishly.

‘I haven’t come to help. Or, rather, I have, but there’s also something I want to say to you.’

‘What?’

Raymond laughed. ‘Jeannie, if only you could see yourself. Please don’t scowl like that. I’m nervous enough.’

‘Why should you be nervous?’

‘Because I have no idea what your answer will be when I ask you to marry me.’

I don’t know how long we stared at each other. Me with my eyes wide with shock and Raymond looking as nervous as he claimed he was. And then, without anything being said, we were in each other’s arms.

When my mother came into the kitchen to see what was keeping us, the dirty dishes were still in the sink. We moved apart, smiling foolishly, and all Mum said was, ‘About time. I couldn’t be more pleased, lad.’

Raymond was to wear one of his pre-war suits for the wedding. I was resigned to wearing my best skirt and jacket. It was a serviceable navy-blue serge, not exactly a bride’s first choice, but Pamela in the haberdashery department found a posy of silk anemones that had been behind the counter since before the war, enough to make a spray for my lapel and also to decorate my extremely unglamorous felt hat.

Then Dad came home with some parachute silk. It was perfectly legal. A pal had told him that they were selling it off at the air base and that, as it was coupon free, women were snapping it up to make underwear and curtains, as well as wedding gowns.

My mother and Pamela made my dress and when I tried it on for the final fitting the three of us cried.

‘You look beautiful, our Jeannie.’ My mother sounded surprised.

‘Of course she’s beautiful,’ Pamela said loyally. ‘That’s what being in love does!’

‘No, it’s more than that,’ Mum said. ‘She’s like the ugly duckling.’

‘Mum!’ I spluttered.

‘No, I mean it. You were just an ordinary lass and, of course, everyone compared you with Laura, but you’ve become a truly beautiful woman.’

So we all cried again and when Dad came home from The Fat Ox he shook his head, lit his pipe and retreated behind the evening paper.

I was a June bride. Pamela was my bridesmaid and Dennis, one of Raymond’s new pals from the paper, was best man. After the service we walked across to The Fat Ox for the reception in the room upstairs. While everybody was eating and drinking Mum quietly packed a hamper of sandwiches, sausage rolls and angel cakes for us to take away with us.

We couldn’t afford a honeymoon so we spent the first night of our married life in our little flat above Ida’s Hat Shop in Park View. Raymond had moved in weeks before and had completely redecorated every room.

Mum had also put a bottle of sherry in the hamper and we picnicked on the hearthrug by the glowing bars of the electric fire, like children who weren’t quite sure if it was all right for them to be alone with no one to tell them what to eat or what time to go to bed.

I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. For weeks after the wedding I lived in a kind of blissful glow. But one night when I came home from work my happy little world received a jolt.

Raymond had got home before me and he was sitting at the table looking at photographs. At first I thought he was looking at his own old photographs but then I noticed that it was the shoe box of my own snaps that Mum had brought a few days before; I hadn’t got round to finding a home for it.

There was no reason why Raymond shouldn’t look at the photographs. Over his shoulder I saw myself as a baby, as a schoolgirl enjoying picnics on the beach with my parents, and a later one of me grinning and wearing Dad’s air raid warden’s tin hat. As my eyes roamed over my past I saw Raymond slide one photograph under the others.

But he looked up as if nothing had happened. ‘You should put these in an album.’

‘I might, but now let’s put these away so I can set the table.’

I gathered them up quickly and put the box back on the sideboard. Next day was half day closing and I got home early. I lifted the lid and took out the top few photographs. I knew exactly which one I would find at the bottom of the pile I’d picked up from the table.

There were just three of us. Laura, Bill and me. Their wedding day. She was holding her bouquet and clasping his arm. I stood a little apart, clutching my own bouquet. We were all smiling, just as the photographer had told us. I put the photograph back and shoved the shoe box into the bottom of the wardrobe. Out of sight, out of mind. Except I couldn’t forget the way Raymond had hidden the photograph beneath the others, as if he didn’t want me to know which one he had been staring at.

But Raymond seemed happy enough and I was content. As Christmas drew near I began to make plans to have Mum and Dad at our place. I started putting things away and spent my spare time going through recipes in magazines.

It was during a tea break at work that Pamela came looking for me. ‘I thought I’d better tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ I said without looking up from the recipe for an economy Christmas pudding.

‘Laura’s home.’

I raised my eyes slowly. ‘What?’

‘Laura, she’s come home. She’s left Bill.’

There it was, everything that would take my wonderful world and shake it up—maybe smash it to smithereens.

‘Why has she left him?’ I asked. I wondered if someone had written and told her that Raymond had survived the war.

‘She hated it. The life out there. Miles away from the nearest town—all those sheep—and nowhere to go for a night out. Anyway, she’s home. And…well…’ Pamela paused uneasily.

‘What?’

‘She must have found out by now about Raymond.’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly I felt cold. ‘Yes, I suppose she has.’

That night Raymond and I had planned to go to the Roxy. I looked at him over the table as we ate our Welsh rarebit and wondered if I should tell him. I didn’t think he knew because he acted pretty much as usual, telling me about his day and asking me about mine.

I could have told him then. Oh, today, I could have said, nothing much happened except that Pamela told me that Laura has come home.

But I didn’t. I washed the dishes and got ready and hoped that at least she wouldn’t be coming along to the Roxy. I mean in those days a woman who had left her husband simply because she was bored attracted scandal. Surely Laura wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself?

I was wrong. The dancing hadn’t even started when she walked in. Raymond and I were sitting at a table under the balcony and he had his back to the dance floor. He heard the shocked gasps and the murmurs of surprise and he looked at me. ‘What’s happened?’

All I could do was stare.

Raymond frowned and turned his head slowly. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. A wave of nausea hit me as I sensed his shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. The words caught in my throat.

He turned to look at me. ‘Why?’

‘She’s left Bill. I should have told you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

I didn’t have time to answer him even if I could have. Laura had seen us and she came straight across the floor. People drew back and I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that some held their breath.

Just as if nothing had happened, just as if there had been no years in between, she smiled at Raymond and held out her hand, as he had done the first time he had asked her to dance. She didn’t even look at me.

The music began and they started to dance. People watched, just as they had before. There was no denying that together they were the most glamorous couple anyone had ever seen.

Gradually the other couples surrounded them and soon I saw only glimpses of my friend and my husband as they moved around the floor. And then I lost sight of them altogether. I stood up and searched keenly as the couples danced by, but soon there was no denying it. Raymond and Laura were no longer there.

Cold. I felt so cold. I made my way to the foyer and collected my coat from Hilda.

‘They’re up there,’ she said, nodding towards the stairs that led to the little snack bar.

I was mortified that anyone should think I was looking for them. I didn’t say anything. I put my coat on and walked out.

It was bitterly cold on the promenade. The wind gusted viciously, snatching my breath and knifing cruelly through my body. But, instead of making for home, I headed north towards the lighthouse and watched its wide beam sweep across the turbulent waters. Tears made cold tracks down my face and every now and then I tried to rub them away with my gloved hands.

I stopped when I reached the cemetery. The dead end of town, as we used to joke when we were children, and turned round to go home. There was nothing else to do.

The front door seemed to open of its own volition the moment I put my key in the lock. My mother was standing there. She must have been waiting in the tiny hallway, listening for every footstep.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, and I knew she was angry because I hardly ever heard her swear.

‘Walking,’ I said.

‘Honestly, Jeannie, if I wasn’t so pleased to see you I would smack you! Now, come upstairs and take your coat off. Sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.’

Cocoa. My mother’s remedy for all ills and upsets.

‘Your father and Raymond are out looking for you,’ she said when she came back into the room. ‘Your father’s sick with worry and Raymond’s near demented.’

‘Raymond?’

‘Yes, Raymond, your husband. Remember him? He told us you’d simply walked out on him at the Roxy and, when he realised you’d gone, he came straight home. When he found you weren’t here he thought you might have come to us.’

‘Did he tell you why he thought that?’

‘Yes, he did. Laura’s back and he…’

Before she could say any more we heard the front door open and worried voices on the stairs as Raymond and my father ascended.

‘She’s here,’ my mother said even before they had opened the door of the living room.

‘Thank God,’ Raymond said.

My father just stared. I could see his distress and it would have broken my heart if there had been anything left to break.

‘We’ll go now,’ my mother said. ‘You two need to talk.’

I watched them go. Raymond just stood and stared. He’s going to tell me now, I thought—tell me that he still loves Laura.

So his next words took me by surprise. ‘Why did you run away?’

Did he really need me to tell him?

‘Because you went with Laura,’ I said. ‘I saw the way you danced with her. I realised that you still love her. You lost her once and now she’s come back.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.

I nodded mutely.

‘Well, you were wrong!’ I don’t think I had ever seen him look so angry. ‘Completely and utterly wrong.’

‘But you left the floor together—you went up to the snack bar.’

‘And what did you imagine we were doing? Did you think we had fallen into each other’s arms?’ His face was white.

‘I…it crossed my mind.’

‘For God’s sake, Jeannie. I had to talk to her. I knew from the moment she pulled me on to the dance floor that she hoped we might get together again and I had to tell her as soon as possible that it wasn’t going to happen.’

‘Why not?’ I whispered. ‘Don’t you love her any more?’

Raymond sank down on the sofa beside me and pushed a lock of hair back wearily.

‘Of course I don’t. Don’t you know that by now? Don’t you know how much I love you? How grateful I am for every day we’ve had together?’

I turned to look into his face and saw the truth. I couldn’t help it, I began to sob.

Raymond put his arm around me and drew me close.

‘Don’t cry, my Jeannie,’ he said and those were probably the most romantic words I’ve ever heard.

Neither of us spoke after that. We lay in each other’s arms on the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, the bars on the electric fire glowed comfortingly and we fell asleep.

In my dreams I heard the music playing but there was no one in the ballroom except Raymond and me. He walked towards me across the dance floor and held out his hand. Then he pulled me into his arms and we began to dance.

Taking Life Seriously

Jane Gordon-Cumming

Jane Gordon-Cumming began writing when she was about seven and used to make up stories about the teachers at school to entertain her friends. Making people laugh has been her main object in life ever since. She has had many short stories in magazines and on the radio, as well as in the OxPens anthologies of stories set in Oxford. Her first novel, A Proper Family Christmas, was published in 2005, and she is working on A Proper Family Holiday, set in a Gothic dower house in Gloucestershire. Jane is Deputy Treasurer of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and Secretary of the Oxford Writers’ Group. She lives in Oxford and is married to Edwin Osborn. When not writing, she enjoys trips on Worcester, their diesel-electric narrowboat, works as a volunteer in archaeology and sings in two choirs. You can read more about her on her website www.janegordoncumming.co.uk

Taking Life Seriously

It all started when I was sacked from the naughty food company—for being silly. You wouldn’t think it was possible, would you? It was the most amazingly silly job anyone could have, making marzipan penises and sugar boobs for party novelties and adult stocking-fillers all over the world. They’re particularly big in Japan, I gather—the market, that is, not the penises and boobs. The only reason anyone would have for taking a job like that would be for a laugh. And so that you could tell people what you did when they asked at parties. It made a real change from the usual run of primary school teachers and computer operators, I can tell you.

So how did I manage to get myself sacked from Edible Erotica? It’s a long story, involving a visiting dignitary from a chain of sex shops in Kiev and a packet of Durex. For such a silly company, they took themselves far too seriously. I should have stayed at the building society.

‘The trouble with you, Gina,’ said my friend Leonora, ‘is that you’re just not serious-minded enough. That’s why you can’t hold down a proper job, or why you never seem to have a boyfriend.’

Leonora is very serious. She’s a social worker for a start—or was till she decided to stay at home to look after Jacyntha and Tyrone. She has really serious hair, dark and floppy, held back by a Sloany hairband, and wears knee-length skirts and brown tights and Edinburgh Woollen Mill cardigans.

‘You were just the same at school. Yes, I know it was funny when you put a fig leaf over that nude statue in the art room, and the red dye in the showers when we were doing Macbeth. But…well…one grows out of that sort of thing, doesn’t one?’

It wasn’t exactly a question.

‘You’re pushing thirty now. Middle age isn’t so far away. And that’s when a young girl with a wacky sense of humour starts to become an eccentric old maid! You don’t want to end up alone, do you?’

‘No, I suppose not.’ On the other hand, did I want to end up like Leonora?

‘Well, if you’re ever going to find someone suitable to settle down with, you’ll simply have to get men to take you more seriously.’

Men were a bit of a sore point. As Leonora pointed out, I’d never had anything approaching a long-term partner. My relationships, assuming they survived the first few dates, tended to degenerate, as she would put it, into friendship. I have a lot of really good friends who are men. They like the way I make them laugh and that they can talk to me as an impartial member of the female sex without feeling there’s any danger of things getting heavy between us.

‘And do you have someone in mind?’

‘I have, as a matter of fact. He’s called Patrick.’ There was an unexpected gleam in Leonora’s brown eyes which, in anyone else, might have been taken for lust. ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous, Gina! As soon as I saw him, I thought how perfect he’d be for you. I met him at Mike’s Christmas party.’

‘Oh. A lawyer, then.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with having a serious job.’ She frowned at my expression. ‘Mike says he’s very highly thought of by the firm. He’s well-spoken and intelligent, and really good-looking…’

‘And still unattached? He must be gay or have some weird personal habits.’

‘Of course he’s not gay!’ Leonora flushed at the idea of anything so unconventional. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s just come out of a relationship with a woman. Oh, well—’ she sighed, relieving me of my empty mug with a resigned air ‘—I had thought of inviting you both to dinner with some of Mike’s other colleagues but I suppose it wouldn’t work. You’re not serious-minded enough to attract someone like Patrick.’

‘Huh!’ Why should I be deprived of this paragon of manhood, just because I had a naturally light-hearted attitude to life? ‘I could be serious if I wanted.’

‘I don’t think so, Gina.’ Leonora considered me sadly. ‘You’re just not that sort of girl.’

I tried looking like that sort of girl. It meant screwing one’s mouth up into a line and sitting up straight in the chair with one’s feet neatly together.

‘Well, if you’re going to make silly faces…’

‘No, honestly! It just needs a bit of practice. Why don’t you ask Patrick round in, say, a month’s time? I’m sure I could become serious in a month.’

It turned out I had a week. After that the firm were sending Patrick to deal with a complicated case in York. Maybe it was the doubtful look she gave me that led me to assure Leonora that this wasn’t a problem.

It couldn’t be that difficult, surely? I had an expert coach and, under her strict supervision, I embarked on a regime of intensive training.

‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell him where you used to work,’ she advised. ‘If anyone asks, you’re still with the building society. And you won’t mention that awful newspaper you take, will you?’

‘I only read it for the problem page,’ I protested. ‘That three-in-a-bed picture story last week raised a serious dilemma.’

Leonora’s derisive snort suggested she didn’t think so. ‘Make a note of some of the articles in this.’ She passed me their copy of the Guardian. ‘And try to remember your favourite programme is Panorama, not Celebrity Wife Swap.‘

‘Patrick had better be damn well worth it,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘He is, believe me.’

I turned up early, as instructed, on the Saturday evening, feeling like a boxer fully prepared for the big fight. Or perhaps I should say a racehorse ready for the National, because I fell at the first hurdle.

‘Good Lord, Gina, you’re not wearing that, are you?’ My trainer greeted me with a scowl.

‘They’re my best jeans.’

‘You can’t possibly wear jeans to a dinner party! Come upstairs. I’ll see if I can find you something of mine.’

My heart sank as I followed her. Keen though I was to look as serious and grown-up as Leonora, I simply could not see myself in her clothes. She opened the wardrobe and began to fling things on the bed.

‘Try this one.’

Unwillingly I took off my jeans and pulled on a long dark skirt. She handed me a long dark jumper to match.

To my surprise, it made me look slim and rather cultured. I turned this way and that to let the skirt swish and admired myself in the mirror.

‘And we must decide what to do about your hair.’

‘What’s wrong with my hair?’ I said defensively.

No one ever thinks they have a perfect body, do they? Even if I could have an inch or two miraculously removed from my hips and added to my bust, I’d probably still moan that my nose was too big. But I do like my hair. It’s a sort of dark gold, thick and wiry, and springs out of my head in a cheerful, unruly manner that used to drive the teachers mad at school.

‘It’s so…young-looking. You need to have it back from your face.’

‘Let me try one of your hairbands.’ This surely would be the transforming touch, the insignia that would turn me into Leonora.

It looked gross—a freaky Alice in Wonderland, high on something. I whipped it off again, deeply disappointed.

‘Let me have a go.’ Leonora started pulling my hair back, twisting it round her fingers and sticking grips in. She was doing it into a bun.

‘I hate it like that…’ But the words froze in my mouth. A complete stranger was beginning to face me. Ethereal, mysterious and very, very serious.

‘Take your make-up off,’ said Leonora.

With surprising skill she applied a touch of bronze to the outside of my lids and a hint of kohl underneath.

‘Pearls!’ I breathed. ‘I must have pearls.’

Leonora had pearls.

The effect was stunning. I opened my mouth and shut it again.

‘The kids want to kiss you goodnight…Bloody hell!’ Mike halted in the doorway, a child in each hand.

Jacyntha was the first to recover. ‘Gina looks like a mummy,’ she said uncertainly.

Tyrone’s face began to crumble. ‘I don’t like her!’ he wailed.

‘It’s her new serious image. Doesn’t she look lovely?’ Leonora glared at her husband and children. I stuck out my tongue at them as I glided through the door.

Patrick was the last guest to arrive and, although my heart beat faster when the bell rang, it was more the feeling of embarking on a driving test than the prospect of meeting someone Leonora described as gorgeous. Mike is a dear, but you wouldn’t exactly call him good-looking, and I’d no reason to think our tastes coincided in that any more than in everything else.

So I was absolutely floored when Leonora brought him into the room. ‘You all know Patrick, don’t you? Except Gina, I believe.’ And he turned out to be—well, gorgeous! He had dark curly hair, a curvy kissable mouth and what I might have sworn was a twinkle in those deep blue eyes, if I hadn’t known him to be a serious-minded lawyer.

He took my hand in a warm, enclosing grasp. ‘Pleased to meet you, Gina.’ And for one mad moment I wanted to make it the real me that Patrick was meeting. But then I remembered how a man like this was never going to be attracted to someone who greeted him with a silly joke about solicitors. He’d want an earnest, solemn sort of girl who took an interest in the important matters of the day.

‘How do you do, Patrick?’ I responded politely. ‘Global warming is a terrible problem, don’t you agree?’

‘Er…yes.’ He looked a little startled.

‘Childhood obesity, too. And it’s so sad that people still hunt elephants for their tusks.’ I frowned in a concerned manner.

Leonora was frowning in just the same way, so I must have got it right. She shook her head, obviously astounded that I was doing so well, and took Patrick off to find a drink.

It’s amazing how you can play a role once you’ve got the costume. Dressed up as Leonora, I was that serious girl. During the starter I regaled them with my views on the Health Service. As we ate our terrine of duck, I canvassed opinions on the Middle East. Pudding was enlivened by a discussion on Chinese orphanages. Leonora was staring at me open-mouthed. I knew she hadn’t thought I could do it. Patrick was clearly stunned. He hardly said a word all through dinner, presumably mulling over the serious issues I had raised.

Soon after Leonora had served coffee, Patrick excused himself, saying he didn’t like to leave his elderly mother at home alone. The others seemed to find that they had to leave, too, and very shortly we had the place to ourselves.

‘That’s funny,’ said Mike, as we helped Leonora pack the dishwasher. ‘I thought Patrick’s mother lived in Brighton.’

Leonora sighed. ‘I suppose it was silly to think a sophisticated man like Patrick would ever go for someone who just can’t help playing the fool.’

It was a relief to change back into my own clothes and brush my hair into its wild and woolly self. I’d shown that I could do Serious, but it was nice to see Gina again in the mirror. It was still only about ten o’clock when I set off on the short walk home. For some reason, I felt a bit depressed. As I passed the pub on the corner, it occurred to me I could do with a drink. I’d held back on the rather serious wine that Mike had provided, wanting to keep a clear head for the task in hand, but there was no need to stay sober now.

I’d bought myself a rum and blackcurrant and was just looking round for a seat when…No, it couldn’t be! Elderly mother, indeed!

I was about to hide and then thought, why should I be the one to be embarrassed? Instead, I went over and greeted him with a bright, ‘Hello there!’

Patrick looked up from his pint and I saw puzzled panic cross his face as he desperately tried to work out where he’d met me before. Oh, this was going to be good!

‘You look pretty miserable,’ I observed, sitting down beside him in a friendly manner.

‘Do I?’ He edged away nervously.

‘Yes. Anyone would think you’d just been to a dreadful dinner party and had come in here to cheer yourself up.’

‘Ah!’ One could hear pennies dropping. He eyed my lurid drink. ‘I could say the same about you.’

‘Well, there’s a coincidence.’

‘I don’t know what yours was like, but there was this terrifying girl at mine,’ Patrick confided. ‘She seemed to have spent her life reading miserable newspaper articles and watching gloomy documentaries.’

I smirked, as one who’d got full marks in the exam. ‘A serious sort of girl, you mean?’

‘Yes, very.’ He pulled a face.

‘Oh!’ I was rather taken aback. ‘Don’t you like being serious, then?’

‘Not in the least.’ Patrick sighed. ‘Just because I’m a lawyer, everyone expects me to be solemn and stuffy but I get quite enough of that in my job. I’d much rather be with someone who can see the fun side of life. Someone who’d drink strange purple concoctions instead of dry wine, for example. Now, I can tell that you’re not serious at all.’

‘I can be, if I try.’

‘Yes, I know you can.’ That was definitely a twinkle. ‘But maybe it’s a talent you should save for when you’re with serious people.’

‘Unlike you?’

‘Unlike me. I really prefer being quite silly.’

So Leonora had got Patrick all wrong. But she had been right about one thing. And he was even more gorgeous when he smiled. I could see that my new challenge would be to make him do that as often as possible.

‘Speaking of jobs, you should hear about the place I used to work. You’ll never believe what they made…’

Hardly a challenge at all. He was laughing already.

The Malta Option

Sue Moorcroft

Sue Moorcroft has managed to wriggle out of all ‘proper jobs’ and works full-time as a writer and a creative writing tutor. As well as her novels, Uphill All the Way and Family Matters, she has sold over one hundred and thirty short stories to magazines in the UK, Norway, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and Sweden, three serials, the occasional article and has written courses for the London School of Journalism. She won the Katie Fforde Bursary Award in 2002. She likes reading, yoga and Pilates and scuba dives in a bimbly kind of way. She’s an armchair formula one addict and hates anyone trying to talk to her when she’s watching a race. Her latest book, Love Writing—How to Make Money Writing Romantic or Erotic Fiction is available in January. For more information about Sue and her writing, visit www.suemoorcroft.com

The Malta Option

‘I want to talk!’

Alicia angled her white lacy hat against the glare of the sun. ‘We’re talking.’

‘Only because I followed you to Malta!’ Grant, unwisely for one who disliked hot countries, wasn’t wearing a hat. His dark hair lay damp against his forehead.

‘We could have talked when I was in England,’ she observed reasonably. She fixed her eyes on a bright orange bus chugging through lots of other orange buses and past the horse-drawn carriages called karozzini. Hordes of people milled around the Triton Fountain in the centre of the terminus and the air rang with voices.

The sun was a demon in Malta in July and no one with any sense stood out in it like this. She fanned herself with the big soft-cover book about the history of the Malta Railway. She’d bought it to read this afternoon in the gardens. She kept herself af loat financially at the moment by writing articles about Malta: travel, historical, profiles of Maltese opera singers and snooker players. Her father had been Maltese; she was fascinated by the rocky island, so it was a labour of love.

‘But you were having a hideous time,’ she allowed, softening.

He gazed down into the Great Ditch over the metal railings that edged the bridge to the city gate. Here and there shrubs had seeded themselves into crevices in the mighty ramparts of Valletta, the honey-coloured citadel. ‘What’s going on, Alicia? You’ve abandoned your life, your family, your friends. You’ve been here for weeks—how long before you come home?’

‘Months, probably. But I hope for even a year or two.’

The shadow of stubble hollowed his cheeks and his eyes were very blue. He clenched his fist. ‘A year? I’ve been wrapped up in myself, I know, but I thought you’d understand why. That you’d wait.’

Between them hung the memory of that ghastly day when everything had changed, when he’d arrived at her door, red-eyed and desperate. ‘The doctors say Robbie hasn’t got long. It’s just a matter of time.’

Even now, she wanted to stroke his face, to kiss the sad lines from his mouth. Place her cheek against the hardness of his chest and hear his heart beat. ‘I did understand! I do. Having to watch Rob—you must’ve been out of your mind with grief when the diagnosis was leukaemia. I realise it became impossible for you to leave as you’d promised. I waited as long as I could.’

Grant touched the hot skin of her arm. ‘When Rob died I was in hell. In a black place inside myself. Michelle and me didn’t even pretend that the marriage was worth saving once he’d gone.’ His voice shook. ‘But I wasn’t ready to let myself be happy with you. I needed time.’

‘Of course!’ Alicia sighed. But time could be so elusive.

She wished desperately that she was alone in the air-conditioned apartment she rented in Sliema, across Marsamxett Harbour. If she began to cry here, with him, she’d never stop. Her arms would wind around him; she’d press herself against the warmth of his body and plead with him to stay with her for the rest of her life. Time! It seemed so simple to him, to let time heal.

But she mustn’t cry! Instead, she shoved her book under his nose. ‘Did you know a railway used to run right here? Under the city? Under our feet? It came out in Freedom Square, by The Opera House.’

He flinched. ‘A railway?’

She scrabbled through the pages of old photographs. ‘Right here! Look, below us, on the floor of the ditch, you see that platform and the railings—that was the station! Amazing, isn’t it? It ran underground from here and came out in Floriana by another big gateway, the Portes des Bombes, about a kilometre away. Look at this photo, look at the city gate. You can see it’s the same place, can’t you? Even if it’s eighty years since the railway shut down.’ Her voice was shrill. She sounded like a phoney. But at least she wasn’t crying.

Slowly, he glanced from the photograph to the ditch, to the gate and back to the page. ‘Yes. I suppose you’re right. It’s the same place.’

‘Isn’t it fascinating? Steam trains beneath the rock. There must’ve been ventilation shafts everywhere. I think it’s extraordinary.’

He wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘I suppose it looks romantic in the black and white photos, all those upright old guys in suits and hats and women in the black costume—’

‘The faldetta. Also called the ghonella. It was the traditional costume—’

He shoved the book into her bag. ‘Alicia! Really, it’s not extraordinary. Few things are! The railway was part of everyday life then, and the remains are part of the scenery now. That tunnel down there has been turned into a garage. The platform is just an empty block of stone.’

She wriggled her hands free. ‘I think it’s extraordinary, the way the remnants have survived. I’m going down to look at it.’

He called after her. ‘It’s just a piece of rock! The island’s made of the stuff!’

She halted suddenly, seeing it through his eyes. An abandoned platform and a couple of blocked off tunnels. Anger rose inside her like a swarm of bees. ‘Well, I’ll show you something that is extraordinary, then!’

She marched away through the teeming bus station, threading through queues at the kiosks for fig rolls with their fragrance of oil and honey, following the foot of another level of fortifications.

He came up behind her. ‘This is madness in this heat, Alicia. Let’s go somewhere cool. We must talk. I need to make you understand what I went through.’

But she did! Her heart had broken for him and once she’d thought she would wait forever. Funny how forever had changed.

She led him down a zigzag path with a battered signpost to the Lascaris War Rooms. ‘It will be cool in here. This little tunnel is cut right from the rock, look, and it goes down and down.’ Their footfalls echoed down the hewn steps as they descended through the tunnels, emerging here and there into the fresh air, only to turn and enter another level. At the entrance to the war rooms she paid for them both in euros and they were given small cassette players to provide a commentary. ‘It’s a complex of rocky cells that housed the military operations command for naval movement in the Mediterranean during the Second World War.’

Every time Grant tried to speak, Alicia jumped in with a fascinating fact. ‘This was actually Montgomery’s office.’ She showed him a tiny chamber with a tin desk and filing cabinet. ‘And the next was Eisenhower’s. They could look over into the operations room below and see where their ships were on that enormous map.’ Mannequins garbed in dated woollen uniforms representing the service personnel of more than sixty years before stared glassily at the chart.

‘I see.’ He remained one pace behind, his cassette player clutched, unused, in his hands as she drifted from room to room, up and down stairs.

They reached the end of the tour and handed back the hardware. ‘So, wasn’t that an extraordinary place?’ she demanded.

He shrugged.

They climbed back up through the network of tunnels and, finally, the zigzag path. Alicia rushed them along like tourists from a cruise ship, trying to devour the city in an afternoon. ‘We’re really close to the Upper Barracca Gardens, here—you’ll never have seen a view like it.’

He’d stopped trying to talk and she was glad. His hurt was so much easier to deal with when he wasn’t wringing her heart with his words. They sweated their way up to the gardens and he strode beside her, surly as a bear, fidgeting while she bought bottles of ice-cold water. She took him to the viewing rail at which other tourists hung, oohing and aahing at the beauty and magnificence of Grand Harbour below them with its five creeks of clear blue sea dancing blindingly in the sunshine, the wakes of every vessel, from tiny motorboats to cruise liners, crisscrossing the waves. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘How about that? The extraordinary only takes a little looking for.’

Even Grant in a black mood couldn’t quite ignore the majesty of Grand Harbour. He watched the boats and gazed at the cities on the other shore and let the breeze ruffle his hair, sipping from the bottle of cold water. She settled beside him at the railings.

Without warning, he dipped his head and kissed her with cold, watery lips.

‘No!’ She jumped back. And then, seeing his hurt, ‘Grant, I’m sorry—’

‘It’s OK. I get it. I shouldn’t have just turned up here.’ He was already walking away, defeat in the slope of his shoulders.

She turned back to the view, the sea and the boats and the buildings melting together as her eyes filled. Better to let him go. Better in the long run. Fishing tissues from her bag with shaking hands, she blew her nose, hard.

And, because her heart was breaking, she murmured, ‘Grant, darling, it’s only because I’m ill!’ But she was careful to say it only under her breath.

Then, suddenly, his hand was on her arm. ‘What?’ He spun her to face him. ‘What do you mean, ill?’

Heart pounding, she shook her head, unable to speak through a throat rigid with sobs. She hadn’t meant him to hear. Had she?

‘How ill?’ He uncapped her bottle of water and lifted it to her mouth.

‘Pretty ill,’ she managed. She brushed his hair out of his eyes tenderly. ‘Too ill.’

Despite the heat of the day, he was white, not red like so many of the laughing, smiling tourists clicking away at the panorama and each other. ‘I can’t play guessing games. Not about illness. Please tell me.’

She sighed. ‘It started with a lump.’ She indicated her breast, the time bomb she carried under her T-shirt, the nightmare in her bra, the enemy. ‘Breast cancer. Like Mum. Like Ginny.’

They took the ferry back to Sliema and trailed up the hill in silence. Dust gathered itchily between her bare toes. Once, he put his arm around her to prevent her from being bustled from the narrow pavement, but mainly they walked through the streets without touching.

Her apartment was small but comfortable with a shower room, a lounge with a kitchen at one end and a bedroom. She didn’t have much with her: summer clothes, some books, her laptop and MP3 player. She didn’t need much. She spent a lot of her time reading books about the history or rattling off on a bus to visit catacombs, the hypogeum, the cliffs, the churches, to drink Marsovin wine or eat pastizzi. She hadn’t told any of her Maltese relatives that she was here. She needed time alone.

She brought iced water to him on the blue leather sofa.

He put it down untouched. ‘You’ve seen doctors?’

‘Doctors. Consultants. I’ve had the scans and the biopsy.’

With a groan he pulled her down against his body. ‘God, Alicia! Why you? Why now? I can’t believe it.’

Despite her intentions, she allowed herself to remain in his arms. A few precious minutes! To sag against him, take comfort from his sweet familiarity. ‘You know that so much is hereditary. My mother died of breast cancer and my sister—’ She swallowed. ‘Ginny is dying.’

His arms tightened and she enjoyed the sensation of captivity, the weight, the heat, even though it burned to have her breast flattened against his ribcage. He curled himself around her and kissed her hair, her temples. His hands smoothed her back. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, even his faint smell of fresh sweat. Grant. Her lover. Her love.

‘You’ve had so much to go through alone. But after Robbie—’

She pressed still closer. ‘I knew I couldn’t drop anything else on you after Robbie. I saw the way you shied away from any detail about Ginny’s cancer. But I’d gone through every scan and therapy and operation with her so there was a certain comfort in there being no nasty surprises. I coped. I’ll continue to cope.’

‘My poor darling.’ He made a little space so that he could study her chest. ‘Which…?’

‘The right.’

Tentatively, he touched it through her white T-shirt. Then slid his fingers gently through the scoop neck to run his fingertips across her flesh, making her shiver.

Relief took ten years from his face. ‘No mastectomy?’

She smiled, although her heart wrenched. ‘No, darling.’

‘Did radiotherapy do the trick? I guess you haven’t had chemo.’ He stroked her hair, plaited back from her face and little curls frizzing around her face from the heat.

She took his hand and kissed it. She could lie to him. He wouldn’t realise straight away.

They could have time together. A little oasis of pleasure and love. A week. Two weeks. She might even return with him to England for a while and keep up the pretence for precious months.

But she loved him too much for that. ‘I’ve had no treatment.’

His movements stilled. Panic flashed into his eyes. ‘I thought it was the sooner the better? Isn’t that what they said to Ginny? She had radiotherapy to shrink the tumour and—’

‘And then a double mastectomy,’ she finished for him. ‘And more radio. And chemo. And she went on Tamoxifen to keep the cancer at bay. But up it popped in her neck and they dug it out there. And now it’s on her lung and she’s having more chemo. She’s lost her hair again. But—’ she took a deep breath ‘—I don’t have the same kind of cancer as her. I have IBC. Inflammatory Breast Cancer.’

He was shaking. She could feel him thrumming as if he were an idling car. Sweat oozed into the creases of his fingers. In his eyes she saw the same despair as when he’d known there was no hope for Robbie. ‘Is that an OK form of breast cancer?’

She shook her head.

He cleared his throat. Sweat popped up across his cheeks. ‘So why aren’t you having treatment?’

She kissed him again. It might be the last time.

She couldn’t look him in the eyes. ‘Because there’s no point.’

His hands clenched around hers until she thought her fingers would splinter. ‘No point?’

Tears left prickly little trails on her cheeks as they plopped in quick succession onto her chest. The words hurt her throat as she forced them out. ‘IBC is rare. It’s all the bad things, Grant! Aggressive, fast-growing, invasive! So I’ve refused treatment.’

‘But chemo—’

‘Chemotherapy’s oversold. It’ll slow things down a bit but at what cost? You’ve seen Ginny! Losing her hair, can’t keep anything down, exhausted, sleeping twenty hours a day!’

Suddenly he was shouting, right in her face, lips drawn up like an animal’s. ‘You can’t refuse treatment! You don’t know how much time they can give you unless you let them try!’

And she was shouting back. ‘I am refusing treatment, I have refused treatment! Because I’ve watched my sister die by degrees over the last three years while they cut things off her and out of her. Yes, she’s had three years but how much of that has she spent being miserable? It was the same for Mum! At least, this way, I’ll enjoy some of what I’ve got left!’

His eyes blazed with pain. ‘I can’t let you die.’

‘You can’t do anything else.’ She lifted his hands and kissed them rapidly, desperately. ‘I’m not alone, others choose this. It’s a gentler way, Grant. They call it the South of France Option. I just made it the Malta Option because I’m happy here.’

He lurched to his feet. ‘So you’re going to do nothing?’

Her heart was hammering. ‘Not quite nothing. I’ve got an exercise plan to keep me strong. I swim and walk every day, I eat loads of fruit and avoid dairy. I bought some drinks through the Internet that have had amazing results in a few cases.’

His voice dropped. ‘You’re not telling me you’re fighting aggressive breast cancer with herbal tea?’

Exhausted, she let her head drop back. ‘It’s about as much use as anything else.’

Slowly, he backed away.

‘So I’m supposed to just watch you die?’

Fresh tears squeezed out from beneath her lids. ‘I came here so no one has to watch.’

Then he’d backed right across the room and was at the door to the apartment. The door opened and he stepped through it.

She didn’t even watch him leave. He’d watched his child die and he wouldn’t be able to see her go, too. She understood. She understood!

Her tears dried and she watched the sunlight fade from the day, listening to the rumbles and hoots of the traffic on Tower Road and voices on the stairs as other, happier people came and went.

It was midnight. And a tapping at the door.

‘It’s me.’ His voice was low.

She’d been reading in bed in a white nightshirt, too tired to sleep. She let him in. He was a good man and it would rip at his conscience if she made him leave without saying goodbye.

He took her delicately in his arms, stroking her rippled hair back from her face.

‘Is there pain?’

She nodded. ‘Some.’

His fingers moved to her top button and flicked it open. ‘I’ll rearrange my work so that I can stay with you.’ Two more buttons. His hands were unsteady.

Her heart leapt but still she tested him with a protest. ‘You had so much time off last year for Robbie!’

A fourth button and a fifth. He pushed the shirt from her shoulders. It slid, slowly, down her arms. Baring her to his gaze. ‘You’re beautiful. I love you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Just let me stay.’

Hope soared. ‘We could go home to England; you don’t like Malta! The heat—’

‘—is not important. If the Malta Option is what you want and all I’ve got left of you, then that’s what I’ll take.’ He stooped and touched a kiss like a butterfly to her breast. The one that was red and swollen and ridged.

The tears began again. But she was not entirely sad. They’d have to talk about the sensible stuff and the bad stuff. But not yet. First they were going to enjoy what they had.

‘You’re a wonderful man.’ She put her cheek against his collarbone and let herself enjoy the thud of his heart where their bodies touched. ‘Truly. I always find something extraordinary in Malta.’

Mummies and Daddies

Victoria Connelly

Victoria Connelly grew up in Norfolk and now lives in London with her artist husband. She has written all her life and has had great success with her magical romances in Germany. The first—about a group of tiny guardian angels—has been made into a film. Her first novel published in the UK, Molly’s Millions, is a romantic comedy about a lottery winner who gives it all away in true Robin Hood style. She also writes for children. Find out more at www.victoriaconnelly.com

Mummies and Daddies

The Egyptian rooms of The British Museum are my favourite place to sketch.

I usually start in the galleries where the colossal statues stare down at the hordes of tourists, their stone eyes seeming to see everybody at once.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with all things Egyptian. There was something about the shapes of the hieroglyphs and the graceful figures from their ancient tombs that fired my imagination at school. That’s when I started drawing my own pharaohs and mummies and writing stories about them. Ever since I discovered the collection at the British Museum, I’ve visited at every opportunity. It’s a constant source of inspiration for the books I now write and illustrate.

And here I am again, collecting last minute notes and sketches for a children’s book, climbing the west stairs towards my favourite haunt. I remember how much Matt used to hate me coming here.

‘You spend more time with those mummies than you do with me!’ he’d shout. I never tried explaining my fascination with the mummies to him because he’d never understand. As far as Matt could see, my books were just a nice little hobby. He didn’t even bother to look at them when they were published. I’m glad I never dedicated one to him.

Walking through Early Mesopotamia, I remember the last time Matt shouted and me—calmly and quietly—telling him, ‘Please be out of my flat by the time the British Museum closes. That’s eight-thirty on a Thursday,’ I’d added, ducking to avoid the football he’d thrown. I wouldn’t miss those lying around the flat, I’d thought as I left, seeking sanctuary in the Egyptian galleries for the hours until my home was my own again.

That was three months ago and I still can’t believe that I fell for him. How ridiculously optimistic love can be sometimes. We were so different and yet I’d always thought it would work out somehow. But I was Egypt and he was Everton.

As I enter the Egyptian rooms, I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s always such a welcome sight and it’s busy today, which is fun for me because I’m a great people-watcher. I get my sketchbook out and make a start. At first, I focus on the cabinets filled with mummies but I inevitably find myself drawn to the tourists. There’s a young couple with their arms around each other’s waists, moving as one through the room; a young mother with a toddler and her pale face and red eyes tell me she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for some time; and then there’s a father with his young son—and I can’t help noticing how handsome the father is. And he has the cutest smile I’ve seen in a long time.

I watch them. The father’s taking time to explain things to his son. He points out the colours, the materials—the blazing golds and rich lapis lazulis and, like most of the other tourists I’ve watched over the years, they’re taking great pleasure in spotting the familiar figures: there’s Horus the falcon-headed god, and Anubis with his jackal head.

I continue watching the father as he calmly answers each of his son’s questions, quickly scanning the cards in front of the objects and hastily gaining the information his son wants.

‘What’s that?’ the son asks, pointing into one of the cabinets.

‘Er—’ the father falters ‘—that’s a shabti.’

‘What’s a shabby?’

‘Well—’ his eyes quickly dart for information ‘—it’s a little model in the shape of a mummy that was thought to come to life after death. They were used as servants. The more you had buried with you, the better.’

The son looks absolutely fascinated and I look across at the brilliant blue shabti, turquoise like a summer sky, and wish I had a team at home to help me with the chores, which always get left in favour of my drawing.

The father and son move to another exhibit—the cabinet with the fabulous golden mummies. They stand in front of the largest, with its long ebony hair and huge almond-shaped eyes rimmed with black. Her passive face stares into eternity and she is almost smiling, but not quite. She reminds me of the Mona Lisa—there’s that sort of peace about her. She’s one of my favourites.

‘Look at the gold!’ the father says.

I smile. It’s obvious to me that this is their first visit and they’re both as captivated by the mummy as I was when I first saw her. The boy’s mouth has dropped open into a wide ‘o’ and the father’s eyes have gone quite round with wonder. And I suddenly realise that I’m drawing them both. My pencil is flying across the page: the father’s kind, open face and his wavy, slightly wild hair, and the boy’s sparkling eyes and his inability to stand still for longer than three seconds.

Once my sketch is more or less complete, I move through to the next room, where I know there’s a bench near the mummy known as Ginger. I sit down, glad to have the weight off my feet for a while. This room’s much bigger and lighter, less oppressive than its neighbours but no less crowded. My eyes travel—inevitably—towards Ginger—the body of an ancient man who’s been naturally mummified in the desert sands. He always pulls in the crowds.

Today, he attracts the father and his son I’ve been sketching.

‘Hello,’ the father says as he spies a seat next to me. ‘Mind if I sit here?’

I look up from my sketchbook, disarmed by his cute smile. ‘Not at all.’

We look around the room together as his son stands, fascinated, by Ginger.

‘You know, I could come here every day,’ the father says suddenly and I smile. ‘Couldn’t you?’

I bite my lip, not daring to tell him that I almost do. ‘It’s one of my favourite places,’ I say instead.

He then notices the sketchbook on my lap. ‘Can I see?’

I find that I’m blushing as I show him my scribbles.

‘They’re really good,’ he says. ‘Is this what you do for a living?’

I smile shyly. ‘I’ve had a few books published.’

‘Really?’ He looks surprised and I’m wondering if that’s a good thing.

‘Just for children.’

‘Just? They’re the toughest audience.’

I nod. ‘I guess they are.’

‘You like children, then?’ he asks.

‘Oh, yes! I love them. I’d like some of my own one day.’ And then I blush. How awful did that sound? He smiles at me and I’m heartily relieved that I haven’t sent him running for the nearest exit. ‘How old’s your son?’ I ask quickly.

‘Billy’s eight tomorrow. This is our big day out today. Can you believe, I offered him the whole of London and he chose to come here? Wanted to see the mummies.’

For a moment I want to ask about Billy’s real life mummy but it would look much too forward, wouldn’t it?

‘And what will you be doing to celebrate tomorrow?’

‘He’ll be at his mum’s,’ he says.

My eyes widen a fraction.

‘We’re divorced,’ he explains.

‘Oh.’ I fish around for something slightly less inane to say but nothing comes to mind.

‘He’s having a party over there. Cake, friends, entertainer—the works!’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘Don’t you believe it! Fifteen eight-year-old boys and girls crammed into a thirties terrace is anything but fun!’ He laughs and tiny crinkles spread around his eyes like little rays from sunshine. ‘I got off lightly with our day out, I think.’

I glance over at Billy, who’s still examining the mummified body of Ginger.

‘You can see his fingers and everything!’ he shouts across to us. ‘Cool!’

‘So, might I have heard of some of your books?’ the father asks me.

‘Night of the Mummies,’ I say, choosing my most popular title.

‘You’re kidding! That’s Billy’s favourite book.’

‘No!’ I gasp.

‘That’s why we’re here today. He won’t stop talking about mummies. Please tell me there’s a sequel.’

I nod proudly. ‘Out in time for Christmas. Dawn of the Mummies.’

‘Excellent!’ he says. ‘Wow! I can’t believe I’m sitting next to the writer. Billy!’ he calls. ‘Billy—come here.’

Billy runs over.

‘Billy, you’re never going to guess who this is,’ his father says. ‘The writer of Night of the Mummies!’

‘No way!’ Billy exclaims. ‘Really?’

I nod. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ I say, smiling at him.

‘Wow! That’s—like—my favourite book in the whole world! Is there going to be another one?’

‘In time for Christmas.’ His father’s delighted to pass on his insider information.

‘And will it have Sethmosis in it?’

‘Newly wrapped and ready to rise from the dead again,’ I tell him.

‘Excellent!’ he says. ‘That’s him in the next room, isn’t it?’

‘The one lying flat, yes.’

‘Told you, Dad!’ Billy says.

His dad shakes his head. ‘He knows your book inside out. He’s been spotting all your characters next door.’

I turn to smile at Billy again but something’s caught his eye on the other side of the room and he’s on the move once more.

‘I actually came here today because of the new mummy book,’ I say. ‘Just putting together a few finishing touches.’

‘Can I see?’

For a moment I hold back. I’m nervous, which is silly really because I spend most of my time sketching in public and it’s usual for people to peer over my shoulder and pass comment on what I’m doing. But here’s a real-life reader of mine and, as I hold out my sketchbook, I suddenly worry that he won’t like what I’ve drawn.

He takes the sketchbook and looks over the last page of drawings I did of the mummies. ‘Oh, this is good,’ he says. ‘Look at this guy! Looks like he’ll be trouble in the new book.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ I say.

And then he flips the page and sees the sketch of him and his son.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say hastily. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

His eyebrows are raised and he looks momentarily stunned. ‘It’s really good,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been drawn before. And Billy. You’ve really caught him. All that energy he has—you can really see it.’

‘Thanks!’ Relief fills me.

‘Oh, I’m Oliver,’ he says.

‘I’m Sarah.’

‘I know. Sarah Galani. My favourite writer.’

I beam at the unexpected praise.

Suddenly, Billy is upon us, grabbing his father’s hands and doing his best to drag him up. ‘Come on, Dad!’ he says. ‘Let’s see the rest.’

Oliver looks at me and shrugs. ‘I think it’s time to go,’ he says, as if apologising.

‘Here,’ I say, tearing the page out of my sketchbook spontaneously. ‘I’d like you to have it.’

He looks surprised for a moment but then asks, ‘Will you sign it for me?’

I smile and nod, signing my name at the bottom right-hand corner of the page before scribbling something else there, too. I hand it to him. He takes it from me and, seeing what I’ve written, smiles, and it’s one of those smiles you can feel in your very bones.

I watch as Billy drags him into the next room and they slowly merge and disappear into the crowds.

I sit perfectly still, just thinking. I’ve never, ever thought that I’d meet anyone in The British Museum, which strikes me as odd considering how much time I spend here. But it all seems perfectly logical now—like people who sign up for evening classes hoping to meet their soulmates over a pottery wheel or computer keyboard.

I watch the tourists come and go and realise that I probably won’t get any more sketching done today. As I walk through the familiar rooms, I wonder if Oliver will call the number I scribbled down for him.

But then I remember the way his face lit up as he saw it and, as I descend the west stairs, I have a feeling that I might be seeing that smile again soon.

Just Deserts

Amanda Grange

Amanda Grange was born in Yorkshire and spent her teenage years reading Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer whilst also finding time to study music at Nottingham University. She has had sixteen novels published, including five Jane Austen retellings, which look at events from the heroes’ points of view. Woman said of Mr Darcy’s Diary: ‘Lots of fun, this is the tale behind the alpha male,’ whilst the Washington Post called Mr Knightley’s Diary ‘affectionate’. The Historical Novels Review made Captain Wentworth’s Diary an Editors’ Choice, remarking, ‘Amanda Grange has hit upon a winning formula.’ Austenblog declared that Colonel Brandon’s Diary was ‘the best book yet in her series of heroes’ diaries.’ Amanda Grange now lives in Cheshire. Visit her website at www.amandagrange.com

Just Deserts

The night was wild. The wind howled and the hail battered the windows of the inn. The parlour was empty, save for a gentleman who sat quietly in the corner of the room with a glass of port, the single candle on the table in front of him casting a flickering light but leaving his face in shadow.

The door opened and a second gentleman entered. Young and handsome, he was dressed in a red coat, but when he approached the fire it could be seen that his cuffs were frayed.

The landlord followed him in and took his order for wine, as the sound of a shrill voice floated through the door.

‘I will not have you looking at other women, John. You must learn to behave yourself in public, even if you cannot behave in private. I will be stopping your allowance until you have learnt your lesson.’

‘Damn you, Sophia! You knew what kind of marriage we had when we made it; it is too late to regret your bargain now.’

‘Nevertheless, I will not have you embarrassing me in public.’

‘I will not dance to your tune! I am a man, not a puppet. Keep your damned allowance. You seem to have forgotten that I have money of my own.’

‘I am forgetting nothing. Your fortune will not keep you in coats and hunters. It will certainly not allow you to gamble and keep the more expensive kind of mistress. You look surprised. Did you think I did not know? But no matter. As long as you are discreet, you may keep as many mistresses as you choose, but when we are in public you will pay attention to me and make every woman in the room jealous.’

‘I wonder at you wanting that kind of attention,’ came the sneering reply.

‘I cannot live without any compensation for my disappointments and if my tastes run to jealousy instead of affairs, then what is it to you? I am going to bed. I suggest you do the same, with a clear head, so that in the morning you will have come to your senses.’

The stairs creaked and a light woman’s footstep could be heard going upstairs. Immediately afterwards, the landlord left the parlour and an ill-humoured gentleman in a many-caped greatcoat entered. He removed his coat and threw it over a chair, droplets of water flying everywhere. He threw himself down beside the fire. ‘Women are the very devil.’

‘There is nothing wrong with women,’ said the man in the red coat sourly. ‘It is wives that are the curse.’

‘Ah, there speaks a married man,’ said the newcomer with a wry smile.

‘George Wickham,’ said the man in the red coat.

‘John Willoughby,’ returned the other.

‘At least your wife is rich,’ said Wickham.

‘An heiress,’ said Willoughby, putting one leg over the arm of the chair. ‘Miss Grey, as she was. A great catch. Everyone told me at the time that I was the luckiest of men.’

‘And so you were!’ said Wickham, impressed. ‘I saw her myself, and I would have been glad to marry her. She had fifty thousand pounds, had she not?’

‘Aye, and she has it still, for she will not part with a penny.’

‘No?’ asked Wickham, looking at Willoughby’s expertly tailored new coat and his shining boots.

‘Maybe a little, then,’ admitted Willoughby grudgingly. ‘But only so that I will look well in public and make her friends jealous. When I think of the woman I could have married…’ He sighed. ‘Her name was Marianne. She was a beautiful young girl, good-humoured, passionate, romantic…you should have seen her, Wickham, as I saw her, on that first day, running down the hill with the wind in her hair, as free as a bird, until, by some lucky chance she fell and sprained her ankle and I had the good fortune to be able to carry her home. The feel of her in my arms! And the sight of her, blushing profusely, whilst her heart beat a tattoo against my chest. I tell you, Wickham, if I had married her instead of this shrew I would be a happy man.’

‘Then why did you not do so? Let me guess. She had no money.’

‘No. She was poor. But it did not signify, for I was due to inherit a fortune.’

‘Ah. Then your tale is like mine, for I should have inherited a fortune, too, or at least a living, and a rich one; and if I had, then I would have been able to marry a woman of my choice.’

Willoughby looked at him and laughed. ‘You do not have the look of a clergyman. Do not tell me you meant to take holy orders, for I will not believe you!’

The landlord entered with a bottle of wine and a glass.

‘Another bottle, and another glass, landlord,’ said Willoughby. ‘The best you have in your cellar.’

The landlord bowed and left the room, whilst Wickham poured his wine and drank, then pulled a face.

‘Sour?’ asked Willoughby.

‘Abominable,’ Wickham admitted.

‘Never mind, you will join me tonight. We will drown our sorrows together—unless you still have plans to join the clergy?’ he asked.

Wickham laughed. ‘Not I. But I would have taken the living anyway. And then I would have sold it, and a good price I would have got for it as well, for it was one of the best in England.’

‘What happened?’ asked Willoughby.

‘The old man who left it to me had a son. The son decided I was not fit to hold the living and bribed me not to take it, giving me a paltry sum in exchange. I should have held out for more, but my debts were heavy,’ he said with a sigh.

The landlord entered. Willoughby poured himself a glass of wine and savoured it, then poured a glass for Wickham.

‘Another bottle,’ he said to the overjoyed landlord, then changed his mind and said, ‘Another two.’

As the landlord left, Willoughby turned again to Wickham.

‘We have both suffered through the interference of relatives,’ he said. ‘In my case, it was not a son but a great-aunt, a wealthy woman with no children. She was not expected to live for more than a few months. I was her heir, until certain rumours reached her of a girl I had taken up with. She told me that unless I married the girl she would disinherit me. I ask you, Wickham, what man would marry a sixteen-year-old girl he had taken to London for a few weeks, a girl with neither money nor useful connections, just because he had got her with child?’

‘Only a fool,’ said Wickham.

‘Though in one way at least it was my own fault,’ said Willoughby, ‘for I should have made sure she had no one to come after her. I thought I had done so. I knew her to be an orphan, but I neglected to ask her if she had a guardian.’

‘And had she?’

‘She had. The worst kind, for he was a colonel, no less, by the name of Brandon.’ He drank deeply. ‘He had the effrontery to tell me to marry her and, when I refused, he called me out.’ He blanched and drained his glass. ‘I thought I was done for. But the fool deloped.’ He poured himself another glass of wine and added bitterly, ‘Not that it did me any good, for once my aunt had disinherited me I had to marry money and so I could not marry Marianne anyway.’

‘A sad tale,’ said Wickham. He was full of sympathy, for he was drinking Willoughby’s excellent wine. ‘You have suffered at the hands of an aunt and a guardian, though you, at least, escaped marriage to the girl who threw herself at your head. I have suffered at the hands of a son and a guardian and, worse still, they were one and the same man: Fitzwilliam Darcy.’

‘Darcy?’ exclaimed Willoughby. ‘I know the name. Indeed, I know the estate, one of the finest in the country. He is a powerful man to have against you.’

‘Indeed. He not only deprived me of my living but he robbed me of an heiress: having spent the paltry sum he gave me for the living, I soon found myself short of funds again and I looked about me for a means of alleviating my difficulties, to find salvation in the form of Georgiana Darcy. She was fond of me, and a little effort on my part secured her affections. I must admit that the idea of being revenged on Darcy added to her appeal. He had deprived me of one living, it was only right that he should provide me with another.’

‘And marrying an heiress was a living you knew you would find congenial, I suppose?’

‘Far more congenial than making sermons! So once I had wooed her I persuaded her into an elopement.’

‘And Darcy found out?’

‘It was the merest chance. He paid her a surprise visit and she, foolish girl, told him everything, so the elopement came to naught. I left the neighbourhood and went into Hertfordshire, only to find that Darcy was staying there. Damn the man! I am sure he came between me and an heiress I was pursuing there, a Miss King; in any case, she was sent away to Liverpool and so that, too, came to nothing. I left the neighbourhood and went down to Brighton, where I came across Lydia Bennet, a girl I had known in Hertfordshire.’

‘Let me guess. She was sixteen, eager for a trip to London…a few weeks of fun, and then…’

‘And then Darcy came after me. He was, by the unluckiest chance, enamoured of Lydia’s sister and, not wanting a scandal in the family, he told me I must marry her. Marry Lydia Bennet! A girl with no money and no sense.’

‘But with connections.’

‘Connections to Darcy, who has never done anything for me but the meanest things and who has used me ill from beginning to end. But once again my debts were pressing and I had no choice but to settle for a paltry sum. I was a fool. I should have held out for more money, or run. I could have married an heiress. I know how to make myself agreeable to women. If only I had done so, I could be as you are now,’ he said bitterly.

‘Married to a shrew,’ Willoughby told him.

‘But a shrew with money.’

Willoughby acknowledged the point.

‘But there is one advantage to having a poor wife,’ Willoughby said. ‘At least you can do as you please. She has no hold over you, and you do not have to listen to her nagging.’

‘Indeed, no,’ said Wickham with a wry smile. ‘I never listen to a word she says. But I walk around in an old coat, I have nothing to ride, save an old nag, and I drink—when I am not fortunate enough to fall in with a friend—’ he said, raising his glass and draining it ‘—the most damnable wine.’

Willoughby shook his head and sighed. ‘Marriage is the very devil.’

‘Amen,’ said Wickham, pouring himself another glass.

There was a slight stirring in the corner and the gentleman sitting there stood up.

‘And what of you, friend?’ asked Willoughby. ‘What is your tale? Come, pull up a chair and join us.’

‘I am sorry, gentlemen—’ said he, coming into the light.

‘Darcy!’ said Wickham.

Darcy made him a bow. ‘—but I am fortunate enough to love my wife.’

He went upstairs, where he found Elizabeth sitting in front of her dressing table in her nightgown, brushing her hair. As the candlelight fell on her dearly loved features he thought how lucky he had been to meet her, to come to know her, and then to love her—and even luckier that she had loved him in return.

‘What are you thinking?’ she said, looking at him in the mirror.

He walked over to her and took the brush out of her hands, then began to brush her hair, smoothing her hair after each brush stroke with his other hand. Every touch of her hair and her scalp sent powerful surges of emotion through him.

‘I was just thinking how lucky I was to find you, and to win you. If not for you, I would never have known what it was like to love and be loved, and nothing can compare with that feeling.’ His hands stilled and he met her eyes in the looking glass. ‘When I think of how many people are forced to go through their lives with those they dislike or despise, through vanity or avarice or bad luck, I realise how fortunate I have been to find you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,’ he said softly.

‘And I you,’ she said, putting her hand up to touch his. ‘I always knew that I could never marry unless I met a man I loved and esteemed, a man I could not live without, and I often thought that I would end up an old maid. I pitied Charlotte when she took Mr Collins. I would have pitied her even if he had not been so ridiculous, for she did not love him. But, having met you, I even pity Jane, for although I know she loves Bingley dearly, I am sure she cannot love him half as much as I love you,’ she said with a smile.

‘Do you think our difficulties made us love each other more?’ He rested his hands on her shoulders.

‘Perhaps, yes, I do, for without them we would not have changed. You would have remained proud and resentful and I would have remained blindly prejudiced, caring more about exercising my wit than discovering what lay beneath the coldest, proudest exterior, and finding something wonderful beneath.’

‘You are right, we have both changed. If not for you, I would have been deeply angry with Wickham when I saw him downstairs just now—’

‘You saw Wickham? He is here?’

‘Yes, he is drinking with John Willoughby and they are bemoaning their fates. We met the Willoughbys in London, if you recall.’

‘Yes, I remember. He was a handsome young man, but he seemed very unhappy; he had been paying attention to Marianne Dashwood, if the gossips were to be believed, but then he abandoned her and married an heiress. I recall his wife. She was very cold.’

‘Very cold and very rich.’

Elizabeth shivered. ‘I think I will get into bed,’ she said.

Darcy smiled, and she smiled back at him, and then he lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed.

As he did so, his eyes never left hers, and their deep connection reminded him of all the pleasures that love had brought them and all the pleasures they had to come.

And before he lost all rational thought he knew himself to be the happiest of men.

The World’s a Stage

Jean Buchanan

Jean Buchanan, a Scot brought up in Wales, read English at Oxford, then went into publishing. Marriage, motherhood and writing took over in the 1980s, though she still freelances for Oxford Dictionaries of Quotations—her favourite project so far is Love Quotations (1999). Her husband is a theoretical physicist, their son is grown up and she is currently writing a rom-com. Her writing career started with short stories for Woman’s Weekly and Bella, then a TV script for Jackanory Playhouse (BBC 1). She moved into sitcom with her TV series The Wild House (shortlisted for a British Comedy Award) and Welcome to Orty-Fou, and she has also written for puppets. Her employment CV includes a brush with the civil service, selling gents’ ties in the poshest department store in Wales and organising international conferences. She can make fingermice and gets truculent about the quality of ice cream. Her interests include early music, France, Scottish country dancing and ornithology. Her hobbies are croquet, Scrabble, and planning holidays in the South of France but ending up in Barnstaple.

The World’s a Stage

Never marry an actor.

This is the most vital piece of advice ever given to an actress. At least according to actresses who have been married to actors or, in some cases, to a succession of actors. I heard it on my first and last days at drama school, on most of the days in between. And afterwards.

Actors are regarded as feckless, touchy, always banging on about ‘craft’, liable to upstage you, hopeless at vehicle maintenance and home repairs and frequently skint. As several of my friends have already discovered. And the actors who caused such large amounts of human misery were also—of course—devastatingly goodlooking. A girl has to hang onto her self-possession and also, particularly in the case of handsome actors, her chequebook.

So when I left drama school, proudly clutching my diploma and eye-wateringly convinced that the world was my oyster, I was on my guard about handsome actors. From the moment I started my first paid acting job, small non-speaking parts in a provincial Christmas panto—village girl, maid in castle kitchen, dancing lady at ball—and also ice-cream-seller during the interval—I remembered the advice.

All the more homely actors were married or firmly attached so I concentrated on furthering my career and establishing unromantic professional friendships with the handsome actors. Part of me thought this was an awful waste, even though all around me I could see them breaking other girls’ hearts like glass.

Then I got work in television drama. Girl in bus queue. Waitress in bistro. Girl on hospital trolley. Girl in bed at end of ward. I was a background artiste, the lowest of the low, but it added to my CV and paid a few bills.

Then I was offered voice-over work for television commercials. It was better paid and I got to sit down. Voice-over work isn’t at all glamorous—it takes place mostly in high-tech underground sheds and it’s more tiring than you’d think but it pays bills faster than standing around in the background—or even lying around in the background.

I became the voice of a seal point Siamese wanting its Moggy Brex—superior, drawly, self-indulgent—the voice of a new range of deodorants—mild, soothing, confidential—and I extolled the virtues of a particularly repellent-looking mushroom pie—earthy, rural, dependable.

Although Hollywood wasn’t exactly beating a path to my door I was getting a reasonable amount of work. But on the romance front things could hardly have been less promising…

My friend Kate, who lived round the corner, was in the same boat. She had a highly paid fourteen-hours-a-day job in the City. We met up when we could, which wasn’t that often, given the capacity of our work to send us all over the place—hers involved first-class travel and five-star hotels; mine didn’t.

We met in coffee shops or in Kate’s palatial flat or in my teeny studio flat and over lattes or wine we sympathised about the lack of eligible men in our lives. These conversations usually ended with one of us saying that it was pathetic. On this occasion, it was Kate’s turn. ‘Let’s face it,’ she said, refilling my glass. ‘It’s pathetic, isn’t it?’

And then, suddenly, everything changed for Kate. I had just got the occasional hurried text message when out of the blue came the announcement of her engagement. Hope for us all, I thought, on the why-not principle. A few days later I got an invitation to the engagement party. Fancy Dress, it said firmly in the corner.

Well, I knew about fancy dress. I visited the nearest theatrical costumier’s, about ten minutes’ walk away from my flat, and put down a deposit to hire a lovely floor-sweeping vaguely mediaeval number in crimson velvet that reminded me of Sleeping Beauty. Just right. I arranged to collect it the afternoon before the party.

I chose an engagement present, a salad bowl glazed green and white. I packed it up with plenty of padding, wrapped the box in bright pink paper and tied a big silver bow around it. Perfect.

On the day of the engagement party I did an emergency voice-over in the morning and by three o’clock was back in my flat, finishing lunch and thinking about strolling down to the theatrical costumier’s to collect my costume. After that I should have time to slip into a bubble bath. But then my phone rang. It was someone at the costumier’s to say that they’d just discovered a mistake with the booking. I couldn’t have my lovely crimson Sleeping Beauty dress as it was still out on hire. They could offer another dress of comparable quality but it belonged to a different period and I’d have to go and collect it from their other branch, which was miles and miles away.

The sky faded by three shades of blue. The sparrows on my bird-feeder sounded grumpy.

I wallowed briefly in a ten-minute bath, threw on some clothes, grabbed my bag and picked up the pink parcel containing the engagement present. Time was tight, so I’d have to go straight to the party once I’d collected my costume. I trekked across several postal districts and an hour later I reached the other branch of the theatrical costumiers, when they were on the point of closing.

They let me have a discount for inconvenience, which I accepted with as much grace as I could muster. I paid up and the elderly assistant was just putting the costume into a box when she suddenly said, ‘You’ll have someone to help you get into this, dear, won’t you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to change when I get there.’

The assistant sighed heavily and opened the box again. ‘You’ll never manage it by yourself,’ she said. ‘Too complicated. Come into the fitting room.’

You’d think I’d have realised, with my training. The dress and the corset underneath it laced up at the back—in the era my costume belonged to they had maids, lots of them. And then there was the wig.

‘You don’t look bad in that,’ the assistant said grudgingly, once she’d shoehorned me into the dress. The corset underneath helped, of course, and the dress material, heavy blue silk, was really pretty. There were even large concealed pockets where I could stow essential items—keys, money, mobile phone, lipstick and a mini A to Z.

The assistant let me leave my bag and clothes there. ‘By the way, dear,’ she said. ‘Should I recognise your voice?’

I said no. It saved time. I thanked her, picked up my parcel, left the shop and headed for the nearest bus stop.

It’s difficult to walk down the street unobtrusively when you’re dressed as Marie Antoinette. And carrying a large pink parcel.

Several old ladies laughed behind their hands. Two men tried unashamedly to look down my cleavage. Small children’s mouths dropped open.

‘I bet she’s advertisin’ something,’ said a spotty teenager to his spottier friend. He managed to speak and leer at the same time. ‘What you advertisin’, darlin’?’

‘Cake,’ I said, and strode on.

The bus driver thought it was hilarious. I had to stand sideways in the aisle because of my skirt, which was very wide and held rigidly in shape from the waist downwards by panniers, ludicrous framework-like structures where the pockets were hidden.

I got off the bus, put the parcel under one arm, fished out my A to Z and turned down a side street. A little lad in a baseball cap asked me if I was a time-traveller. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But if you see the Doctor, promise that you won’t tell him you’ve seen me.’

He looked impressed. ‘What’s your Tardis like, then?’

‘Sedan chair,’ I said. One should try to keep in period.

‘What’s in the parcel?’

‘Anti-gravity,’ I said. ‘Urgently required on Gallifrey.’

‘Why have you got an A to Z, then?’ he called after me. Obviously a bright child.

I stopped briefly. ‘It only looks like an A to Z,’ I said mysteriously.

And then at least four people asked whether I was going in for a fancy dress competition as a spare toilet roll cover. I attempted to smile charmingly and tell them that actually I was going as a tea cosy.

‘Just a minute, love,’ the last one said. ‘Don’t I know your voice?’

‘Do you have a cat?’ I asked.

‘Sure,’ he replied, mystified.

‘In that case, you probably have heard me before.’ I took a deep breath, drew myself up to my full height and said, ‘I am the voice of Moggy Brex.’

‘Wow!’ he said. ‘Can I have your autograph?’

‘My cat hates the stuff,’ said an interested onlooker.

‘So would I, if I was a cat,’ I said recklessly and moved on, hoping that the terms of my contract didn’t include not dissing Moggy Brex.

A few moments later a taxi slowed down at the kerb beside me and a man about my age, with brown curly hair, eyes that crinkled at the corners and a nice smile, put his head out of the window. At another time, in another place, I would have found him wildly attractive. He had the looks that normally make me go weak at the knees.

‘Excuse me.’

I ignored him.

‘Excuse me,’ he said again. ‘Where are you heading?’

I walked rapidly.

‘1785,’ I said. ‘Rift in the time/space continuum over Versailles.’

The taxi moved with me. Just what I needed, a kerb-crawler who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

‘Stop!’ he called to the cabbie, then opened the door and leapt out. He was wearing an early nineteenth-century naval uniform with a swallow-tail coat, white breeches and buckled shoes and there was a cocked hat under his arm—think Lord Nelson, but about a foot taller and with the full complement of arms and eyes. ‘I suspect we’re both going to the same place.’

It took at least five minutes to get me and the parcel into the taxi and he ended up squashed against me because of the panniers. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t mind,’ he said gallantly. ‘Remind me to straighten your wig when we get out.’ I had no option but to lean against him. I could feel his heart beating, smell his aftershave and gauge the size of his shoulders. I remembered how long it was since there had been anyone like him in my life.

All too soon we arrived at the venue, an impressive private house, and tumbled out of the taxi, for which the early nineteenth-century naval officer insisted on paying. Then we were directed around the house to a stunning garden and a large marquee. A three-piece band had been put under the willow tree and were working their way through favourites from Gilbert and Sullivan.

‘Let me get you a drink,’ said the naval officer. ‘Oh, hang on, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Oliver Kitteridge.’

‘Sally Grant.’

‘I suppose I should stay in period and bow,’ he said, and then bowed quite beautifully. ‘And your costume makes you far too early to be shaking hands.’

I curtsied, which was what they did circa 1785. Normally I’m quite good at curtseys—one has to be. But it felt very peculiar with the panniers. And the parcel.

‘I’ll get that drink,’ said Oliver. I parked my parcel beside a flower arrangement and took a glass of champagne gratefully. My estimation of Oliver, which was pretty high already, went up a few more notches. He said he’d left his hat behind the bar. ‘And I’m sorry about the costumes,’ he added. ‘I mean, about guests having to wear costumes. Kate’s always been crazy about fancy dress, ever since she was given a fairy princess outfit at the age of three. And last year some fool gave her the DVD of To Catch A Thief and she’s practically worn it out watching the costume ball scene. Talked about nothing else for a fortnight.’

He seemed to know an awful lot about Kate. Pennies started dropping in a way I didn’t want them to drop. ‘Just a minute,’ I said as my mind went blank on names and an unwelcome thought struck me. ‘You’re not Kate’s fiancé, are you?’

‘Good God, no,’ he said. ‘I’m her cousin. Let me get that glass refilled for you. And I’m not anybody’s fiancé, by the way. Or anybody’s anything.’

We were on our third glass of champagne when I said to him, ‘I suppose you’ve got a job in the City, as well?’

‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘Members of our family tend to end up studying maths at university. And then they go into the City.’

‘Like Kate,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ he said.

‘And now she’s marrying someone else in the City?’

‘Yup. Hugo. Plays the banjo, speaks three languages and cheats at Monopoly. I suppose we should go and greet the happy couple.’

I picked up the parcel and we went to find them. Kate, looking happier than I’d ever seen her, was dressed as a fairy princess—surprise, surprise—and Hugo was wearing knee-breeches and a frock coat. ‘People keep asking me if I’m Ken,’ he said. ‘Who’s Ken?’

‘He’s had a very sheltered upbringing,’ said Kate to me. ‘He’s only got brothers.’

‘Kate’s told me a lot about you,’ said Hugo charmingly, after they had fought their way into the parcel and admired the salad bowl.

‘She’s the voice of Florabunda deodorant,’ said Kate. ‘And Mrs Morrell’s Country Mushroom Pies. And Moggy Brex.’

‘Really?’ said Oliver. ‘That’s so much more interesting than what I do. Shall we go and get some food? It’s in the marquee. They might even have some of Mrs Morrell’s Country Mushroom Pies.’

Mercifully, Mrs Morrell would have been way out of her league. There were platters of blinis, beautifully decorated canapés and a carvery buffet with huge bowls of glistening multicoloured salads, then profiteroles and syllabub and shortcake and mounds of fresh strawberries and raspberries. And the champagne never stopped coming.

As we ate, Oliver asked me about my work, even the hanging-about-in-the-background jobs and the ice cream selling. I supposed that if he worked in an office surrounded by computer screens and financial data he would find what I did fascinating. I asked about his work but he said that he couldn’t say much for reasons of confidentiality.

‘Do you think you can dance in that thing?’ He eyed my dress doubtfully.

‘One way to find out,’ I said.

The band had relocated to the fringe of the dance floor and was now playing a selection of classic French numbers. ‘Oh, lovely,’ I said. ‘La Mer. My favourite.’

‘Very appropriate,’ he said, ‘given your costume. And, come to that, mine: France and the sea.’ He took my hand and led me on to the dance floor. Then he took me in his arms and we started to dance. I felt a delicious anticipation of the electricity of physical attraction. Our bodies touched lightly. Crunch.

‘Dear God,’ said Oliver. ‘What on earth have you got on under that dress?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ I said.

‘Don’t be so sure,’ he murmured.

We went on dancing until the band pleaded desperate thirst and announced a break and then we walked around the garden. There were lanterns strung in the trees and the scents of jasmine and lavender drifted lazily. The evening was getting impossibly romantic, which I suppose was appropriate, given that it was an engagement party. Oliver took my hand. ‘We could go and look at the pond,’ he said. ‘They were going to light it.’

I said, ‘You know this garden?’

‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘It’s Kate’s parents’ house. I spent some of my formative years here—catching tadpoles, watching dragonflies, getting covered in mud.’

Coloured lights glowed from the trees around the pond and, of course, there was a bench.

‘This isn’t as romantic as I’d hoped,’ said Oliver. ‘I can’t get closer to you than about two feet.’

‘Sorry, it’s the panniers. The most fashionable ladies at Versailles had to go through doors sideways.’

The party ended some time after midnight when the champagne ran out and the band got to the end of their repertoire and said they’d have to start on Gilbert and Sullivan again. ‘Let me take you home,’ said Oliver. ‘I’ll just go and get my hat.’

We found a taxi and Oliver helped me in. ‘At least no one’s going to ask to share the cab,’ he said, settling on the opposite side of the seat from me. ‘And I think I’m learning how to cope with your costume. D’you need some help with that seat belt?’

When we arrived at my rather humble apartment building, Oliver paid off the taxi. ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ he said.

‘What about getting home?’ I said. He waved a set of keys at me.

‘Kate’s flat,’ he said. ‘Just round the corner. She’s staying with her parents. So I can crash at her place. I borrowed her keys when I went to get my hat. I thought perhaps I could take you out to lunch tomorrow.’

‘Dressed like that?’ I couldn’t resist asking.

‘If necessary,’ he said. ‘But I thought I’d go out and buy some clothes. Unless some of Kate’s will fit me…No, not really.’

‘Clothes…’ I felt my face drop. ‘I can’t get out of this dress by myself,’ I said. ‘It’s all done up at the back with laces and things.’

‘Can I help?’ he asked.

‘Er—’ I wondered momentarily about the advisability of this.

‘I could do it with my hat over my eyes,’ he suggested.

There was nothing for it. He came up to the flat. Getting in and out of the lift was quite an experience, and once we’d got my front door closed he put his hat down and undid the laces on the dress for me. ‘You’ll have to loosen them as well,’ I said. ‘Or else I won’t be able to get out of it. And then the same with the corset.’

‘It’s amazing what they did before Lycra,’ he said. ‘Will that do?’ he asked about five minutes later.

‘Fine. Thank you.’ I had to hold up the front of the dress to stop it sliding downwards. Then he kissed my back between my shoulder blades. It was wonderful. Electric. A concentration of all the sensations that had been trying to get through that wretched corset.

‘You’ve got a lovely back,’ he said as I turned round.

He kissed me on the lips.

‘I ought to go,’ he said. He kissed me again. ‘I really ought to go,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I heard myself say, then I kissed him back.

He did go. The lock clicked softly behind him.

Always leave them wanting more, I thought. I wasn’t sure whether it referred to him or me.

The next morning he turned up at about half past eleven in chinos and a pale blue shirt, with an enormous bunch of flowers. We went for brunch, then to an art gallery and dinner.

From then on we spent all the time we could together, as much of it as possible with our arms wrapped round each other. The days passed in a haze of happiness. Oliver’s work was punctuated by early starts and working late into the evening. My diary showed a more haphazard work pattern, the norm in my profession. When Oliver was working and I wasn’t, I filled in odd hours with exercise classes or went to the cinema.

One afternoon, when I was sitting in a small studio cinema waiting for a recently released rom-com to begin, I saw something that made my heart lurch. It was Oliver, looking completely different and in the sort of company it didn’t occur to me that he would keep.

I’d have to confront him, I realised as I slunk out of the cinema after the film finished. Mentally, I rehearsed what to say.

Oliver turned up at my flat that evening with an armful of cornflowers. ‘The colour reminded me of your eyes.’ He bent to kiss me, but I moved out of the way.

‘You’ve been deceiving me,’ I said.

‘Oh, God,’ he groaned. ‘You’ve found out. I can explain everything.’

‘That new rom-com,’ I said. ‘I went to see it. I also saw you. Before the film even started. Man in commercial for Henley aftershave.’

‘They only picked me and the other guys for that ad because we could row.’

‘Not just that,’ I said. ‘In the film. Hero’s old school friend with six lines in wine bar.’

He looked sheepish.

‘Admit it,’ I said. ‘You’re an actor. No wonder you always change the subject when I ask about your job.’

‘It’s a fair cop,’ he said. ‘It’s like this—Kate told me about all the stuff about not getting involved with an actor. The actual wording, if I remember correctly, was would not touch with a bargepole. Then I fell in love with you the moment we met and I didn’t want to muck up my chances…’

‘And what about working in the City?’ I asked sternly.

‘It’s true. I’ve taken part in performances of readings there for charity.’ I could believe that—he had a fantastic voice. ‘And I temp there quite a bit. It pays well. And I really have got a degree in maths. I just did a lot of acting at university. And then I went to drama school.’

There was a pause. ‘Can you forgive me?’ he asked.

‘You lied to me,’ I said.

‘No, I didn’t. I misled you. That’s different. It all depended on the interpretation.’

He was looking at me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen on his face. ‘Are you going to forgive me?’

I looked at the cornflowers and his brown eyes and curly hair and thought about the way he’d kissed my back. And all the subsequent kisses and the hours we’d spent together and the wine we’d drunk and the jokes we’d laughed at and the smell of his aftershave—even though it was probably Henley aftershave.

I took a deep breath. Was I going to have to rethink my attitude to the most consistent advice ever handed down from one actress to another?

‘Well?’ he said.

‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I said.

I held the pause for about twenty seconds.

And then I kissed him.

Will You Dance?

Anna Jacobs

The author of forty-five published novels, Anna Jacobs freely confesses to an addiction to story-telling. Fortunately, she is not very domesticated, so has plenty of time to produce two to three novels a year, writing sagas for one publisher, modern women’s fiction for another. She is fascinated by women’s history and by the challenges women face in today’s changing world. Her books have been nominated several times for Australian Romantic Book of the Year, which she won in 2006, and she is among the top few most borrowed authors of adult fiction in English libraries. She’s still in love with her own personal hero, and she and he live half the year in Australia, half in England. Discover more about Anna’s writing at www.annajacobs.com

Will You Dance?

Western Australia, January 1921

When the ship docked at Fremantle, Gracie Bell was on deck with the other passengers. She stared round with a sinking heart. The West Australian port looked so scruffy, like a large village with an untidy collection of tin roofs. The summer heat made sweat trickle down her face. It was like standing in front of a hot oven.

Never mind that, she told herself. In Australia she’d find a more interesting job and make a better life for herself. She wasn’t working as a maid ever again, hated being shut up in a house all day. During the war she’d worked as a conductress on a motor omnibus, but once the war ended she’d lost her lovely job to a soldier returning to England.

She hadn’t emigrated to look for a fellow, though. All her married friends worked like slaves and were always short of money, not to mention having one baby after the other. She didn’t fancy that. Maybe one or two children would be OK, not eight, like her mother.

When she came out of Customs she found her sister, Jane, waiting for her on the dock, looking pregnant, hot and weary, with her husband Tommy beside her. Her brother-in-law had grown fat in Australia, reminding Gracie of an overstuffed cushion. He didn’t look at all tired.

He eyed her up and down, nodded in approval and loaded the luggage on the motor car.

‘Is this your car?’ she asked, trying to make conversation.

‘No. I’ve borrowed it from my friend Bert. He and I work together.’

‘Since we live in Perth, not Fremantle,’ Jane said brightly, ‘this is easier than taking a train into the city. It was very kind of Bert, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’ She saw that more was required and added, ‘Very kind indeed.’

‘Tommy’s doing ever so well at work. We’re buying our own house now.’

Tommy smirked and, as soon as they set off, dominated the conversation. Talk about bossy! Gracie tried to maintain a polite expression but what she really wanted was to talk to her sister.

Jane, who seemed to have lost all her old spirit, gave her a warning look and shook her head slightly when Gracie mentioned her hopes for the future.

What was going on?

The next day being Sunday, they went to church, then Tommy worked in the garden. Gracie couldn’t believe how many tomatoes there were, just growing in the sun, not needing a greenhouse. She’d never eaten them newly picked before, or peaches, either. They were much nicer than tinned ones.

Bert, Tommy’s best friend, always came to tea on Sundays, and Jane spent her sister’s first day in Australia baking a cake and some scones, red-faced, rubbing her back from time to time. Gracie had hoped to go out sightseeing and said as much.

Jane looked over her shoulder and whispered, ‘We’ll go out during the week. There are some lovely shops in the city. But Tommy likes things to be just so on Sundays, so if you don’t mind helping…?’

They were to eat out on the veranda, so Gracie swept outside and dusted all the furniture there. She tidied up indoors as well, which consisted mainly of picking up after Tommy. Didn’t that man ever carry his own empty teacups back into the kitchen, or put away his daily newspaper?

She was very disappointed in his friend Bert, who was nearly as fat as Tommy and just as fond of his own voice.

During the tea party, conversation was mainly between the two men. As he talked, Bert stared at Gracie in the same assessing way Tommy had, and it made her feel uncomfortable. She didn’t know where to turn her eyes.

The hosts insisted on clearing the table and making another pot of tea, which left Bert and Gracie alone.

‘You’re even prettier than your photo.’ He leaned across and, taking her by surprise, planted a big, moist kiss on her lips.

She tried to pull away, but he dragged her to her feet, pressing his body against hers. She wasn’t having that. Stamping on his foot, she scraped her shoe down his shin, causing him to yelp, then she retreated to the other side of the table.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Protecting myself. And I’ll do worse than that if you ever grab me again. How dare you take liberties with me? What sort of person do you think I am?’

‘Aw, come on, Gracie. Don’t be stand-offish. Jane and Tommy have told me so much about you, I’ve been dying to meet you. You can’t blame a fellow for getting carried away.’

Dying to meet her? Alarm bells rang in her head. Just wait till she got her sister alone. She’d find out what was going on.

‘Isn’t Bert a nice fellow?’ Jane said brightly next morning after Tommy had left for work.

‘No.’

Jane looked so horrified, Gracie knew her suspicions were correct. ‘Did you invite me to Australia to pair me off with him? Jane? Answer me.’

‘My goodness, it’s going to be hot again today. I’d better go and water those tomatoes.’

Gracie barred the doorway. ‘You did, didn’t you?’

‘I thought it’d be nice if you lived nearby. And Mum’s been worried about you not marrying, with your young man being killed during the war. There are a lot of spare women now and Bert’s a really good catch. He’ll be foreman after Mr Minchin leaves, you know.’

‘I don’t care how much money he earns. He can only talk about himself and I never did like men with yellow hair and bright pink skin.’

‘Don’t say that to Tommy, please. Why don’t you just…you know…give Bert a chance?’

Gracie pretended to read the newspaper. She found an advert for an employment bureau and tore it out secretly.

The following day, ignoring her sister’s protests and pleas to wait another week or two, she put on her smartest clothes and her best hat. It had an upturned brim decorated by a fabric flower and was worn pulled down to the eyebrows. It showed off her eyes and she had loved it so much that she’d paid thirty shillings for it, a huge extravagance.

She found the employment bureau without difficulty and marched inside, refusing to give in to the butterflies in her stomach. They questioned her about her experience, then offered her a job.

She stared at the woman in dismay. ‘But I told you: I don’t want to work as a maid. I want something more interesting.’

‘There aren’t many other jobs for young women without clerical skills, so it’s either work as a maid or in a shop.’

Gracie had a quick think. If she worked in a shop, she’d have to pay for lodgings and she’d never save any money. Of course, she could stay at her sister’s, but that’d mean putting up with Tommy’s bossiness, not to mention facing Bert’s leers and fumbling hands.

With a sigh, she agreed to consider a live-in maid’s job. But, she vowed to herself, it’d only be for six months. She’d save and look around for something more interesting once she got used to Australia.

‘I have a vacancy on a country homestead in the southwest, working for Mrs Gilsworth. She’s an excellent employer, pays top wages and even provides the uniform.’

Gracie fanned herself. ‘Is it cooler there?’

‘It’s always cooler in the south.’

‘And is there a town nearby? I’ll take it, then.’

‘When can you start? Mrs Gilsworth is rather desperate for help.’

‘Would tomorrow be too soon?’

‘I’ll telephone the local post office and they’ll send her a message. I can find out within two hours, but I’m sure she’ll engage you.’

When Gracie got home, her sister took one look at her and burst into tears. ‘You found a job, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ She tried to ask Jane if she knew anything about the southwest but all her sister could do was worry about what Tommy would say.

Tommy said a great deal that evening, like ‘ungrateful’ and ‘taking advantage’, as he chomped his way through an overloaded plate.

Gracie only had to think of Bert to know she was doing the right thing. In the end, she went to bed early to escape the chilly atmosphere.

But she found it hard to sleep, tossing and turning in the narrow, creaking bed. She was more than a bit nervous about going to live over a hundred miles away from the only people she knew in Western Australia.

The next morning Gracie followed the porter into Perth railway station and watched her trunk and suitcase loaded onto the train. Jane had insisted on coming with her and, even at this late stage, tried to persuade her to change her mind.

‘For goodness’ sake, stop nagging! I’m taking this job and that’s that!’

‘But you came all the way to Australia to be with me and—’

‘To make a new life near you! Not for you to marry me off to one of your husband’s friends. I lost one man to the war and if I ever meet another I like enough to marry he’ll be my choice, not yours. And he won’t have yellow hair.’

Gracie was relieved when the train chugged out of Perth station in a cloud of steam. She felt very alone as she stared at the grass, burned beige like straw by the hot Australian sun south of the city, so different from England. She missed the greenery, missed her other brothers and sisters, too.

It was so hot, she took off her gloves and fanned herself with her hat. There wasn’t much to see and she was alone with only her thoughts and worries for company.

She arrived at Bunbury, a hundred miles south, in the early afternoon. She got out of the train smiling determinedly. The other passengers hurried away, but she waited to be met.

A tall man dressed as a chauffeur strode across to her. ‘Miss Bell?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Finn. Mrs Gilsworth is waiting over there.’

‘I’ve got a trunk to pick up, a blue one.’

‘I’ll see to that.’

His eyes were admiring and Gracie felt flustered. He was nice-looking, with dark hair, twinkling grey-blue eyes and an upright way of holding himself, like many ex-soldiers.

Mrs Gilsworth was plump and expensively dressed. Her eyes narrowed as she looked Gracie up and down. ‘I see Finn found you, Bell. The car is this way.’

Gracie sat in the front next to Finn, who barely said a word, while Mrs Gilsworth never stopped talking about what she had bought at the shops in Bunbury and the dinner party she was giving next week. To hear her talk, Bunbury was a big town. It seemed very small to Gracie.

They drove along country roads, which seemed to get narrower and dustier by the mile. Occasionally, they passed through small clusters of houses. Talk about the ends of the earth! Then at last they turned off on to a long drive to a sprawling wooden house surrounded by verandas and a cluster of farm buildings. Gum trees shaded the house, the leathery leaves a faded green.

It looked very different from the English countryside. Gracie swatted a fly. The scenery wasn’t nearly as pretty here.

Finn drew up at the front door of the homestead and opened the car door for Mrs Gilsworth, then got back in and drove round to the back of the house. He removed his chauffeur’s cap and tossed it on the front seat, rubbing the mark it had made on his forehead. ‘Welcome to Fairgums, Gracie.’

‘The agency didn’t tell me what a long way from town this place was.’ She studied her surroundings.

Finn shrugged. ‘You can save more money in a place like this. Nothing to spend it on.’ He grinned. ‘I like that hat. Makes your eyes look big and mysterious.’

This compliment was so unexpected, she could feel herself flush slightly.

He led the way inside, where he introduced her to Cook, a large motherly woman whose hands never stopped working.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Gracie. You look a cheerful lass. The last housemaid was a sourpuss, but she still got herself a husband. They’re real short of women in the country.’

‘I’m not looking for a husband, thank you very much!’

Cook laughed. ‘They’ll come looking for you.’ She wiped her hands. ‘I’d better show you your bedroom, then you can come and help me.’

The room was large, with a single bed and a mosquito net. A black and white uniform was laid out on a chair and several maid’s caps on the chest of drawers.

Cook pointed towards the uniform. ‘That should fit you nicely. She likes the servants to dress up all fancy when we have guests. Just a print dress and apron will do the rest of the time, but she does like her maids to wear a cap.’

Gracie sighed.

Cook smiled sympathetically. ‘I know. Young women don’t like caps, but she’s a bit old-fashioned. She’s all right otherwise, not stingy with the servants’ food.’

Once alone, Gracie stared out of the window. Only cows and fields to be seen. She’d expected there to be other farms nearby, at least. She had a little cry, then scolded herself and changed into a print dress, sighing as she pinned on the starched white cap provided. She hated the dratted things. But at least Mrs Gilsworth paid good wages, far better than they did in England.

Later in the afternoon Cook told Gracie to ring the bell on the back veranda, then take the weight off her feet for a few minutes.

An elderly man who joined them was introduced as the gardener. Finn followed, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar open, looking very manly and energetic. He took a piece of cake and winked at Gracie.

She sipped her tea, grateful for its familiar warmth. ‘How far away is the nearest town?’

‘We drove through it—Beeniup, five miles back.’

She stared at him. ‘That’s not a town. It’s not even a village. What am I going to do on my days off? Is there a cinema anywhere near?’

‘No, but there’s a church social one Saturday a month for the young folk. The missus lets me have the car to drive us into town.’

‘Who’s “us”?’

‘Just me and you at the moment. The other servants are too old for dancing.’

Cook pretended to slap him for saying that and he pretended to be afraid.

He turned back to Gracie. ‘Do you like dancing? You look like you’d be good at it.’

She loved dancing, knew all the latest dance tunes. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to go to a social event with Finn. He was more than a bit cheeky, if you asked her.

Trouble was, he was really good company and as the days passed he made her laugh, cheering her up when she was feeling homesick, which he seemed to sense even though she tried to hide it. He had a little dimple at one corner of his mouth and she kept watching for it. But he was a thinking man, too, asking her about England, where he’d been stationed for a time during the war.

Without his company, she’d have gone mad.

But, occasionally, he stood too close and, for some reason, that set her pulse racing. She always moved away quickly, trying not to let him see how he’d affected her. She didn’t intend to marry another servant, so it was no use starting anything—however attracted you were to a fellow.

Three weeks later, fed up with the isolation, she agreed to go to the church social.

Anything to get away from the homestead. And maybe she’d make some friends in Beeniup.

Her sister had been right: Gracie had made a mistake taking a job out in the country. But six months would soon pass and at least she’d save money. She kept reminding herself of that.

On the day of the church social, Gracie wore her best summer dress, calf-length in soft voile trimmed with lace. It was the same blue as her eyes.

Finn waited for her in the kitchen, looking very spruce in a dark suit and white shirt, his skin rosy and newly washed. He smelled of shaving soap and fresh air.

He let out a long, low whistle at the sight of her. ‘We’re in trouble,’ he told Cook.

Gracie looked down at herself in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Mrs Gilsworth will have a fit when she sees you in that outfit.’

She studied herself in the mirror. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing! But you look so pretty, she’ll start worrying about you getting married. She’s lost three maids that way in the past eighteen months.’

Flustered, Gracie picked up the small iced cakes Cook had prepared, because women had to take something for supper, it seemed. ‘Well, are we going?’

‘Your carriage awaits, madam.’ He flourished a bow and opened the door.

Their eyes met and her heart skipped a beat. He was a very attractive fellow. But she wasn’t getting tangled up with a servant. She wanted to escape from that.

At the doorway of the church hall she hesitated, suddenly nervous.

Finn smiled at her. ‘Come on! I’ll introduce you to a few people.’ He led the way, nodding and smiling, seeming to know everyone.

He left her with two young women and she enjoyed chatting to them.

‘You are lucky, working with Finn,’ one said, sighing.

Before Gracie could ask why, the music started and fellows crowded round. There seemed to be twice as many young men as there were young women. She danced with three different fellows, enjoying the fuss and attention, even though none of them was a good dancer.

Finn elbowed another man aside as she came off the dance floor the third time. ‘Fancy cooling down outside, Gracie?’

‘That’d be lovely.’

As they walked out together she could see heads turn their way. ‘Why is everyone staring?’

‘Oh, they always watch newcomers.’

A few couples were strolling up and down the scruffy sunburned square of grass behind the hall. The night air was cool and the moonlight bright. Finn made her laugh and they stayed out there for two whole dances.

As they went back inside, he put one hand on his heart. ‘May I ask you for a dance, Miss Bell?’

‘Why certainly, kind sir.’

It was a waltz, her favourite, but being held closely by Finn made her feel breathless again. He was so tall, his teeth white in his suntanned face, his smile seemingly for her alone. He was a good dancer and she relaxed, letting him lead her round the small dance floor.

‘Our steps match well, don’t they?’ he murmured as the waltz ended. ‘Another dance?’

‘That’d be lovely.’

Just before the supper break she went out to the lean-to at the back of the hall to powder her nose.

‘You certainly didn’t waste any time,’ another girl said. ‘Getting Finn for your fellow! I’d give a week’s wages to have him smile at me like that.’

‘What? He’s not my fellow. We just work together.’

‘But he took you walking outside. Round here, that’s a sign you’re courting.’

Fury sizzled through Gracie. The sneaky rat! She wasn’t letting him get away with tricking her like that. If he wanted to court her, he had to ask her first. But surely—no, he couldn’t really be trying to court her! Not so quickly.

She went back inside the hall, marched across to him and said loudly, ‘I’m finished with you, Finn O’Connor! I never want to speak to you again.’ Then she stormed off. She didn’t look at him as she forced down a piece of cake that tasted like sawdust and chatted brightly to another young woman.

‘What did Finn do to upset you?’ the other whispered as Gracie discarded the empty plate.

‘Never you mind. How can I get back to Fairgums without him? Does anyone else go that way?’

‘No, and it’s five miles!’

Gracie scowled across the hall at Finn, who grinned and winked at her. What a nerve! She elevated her nose and looked away.

When the dancing began again, she saw him start towards her and slipped outside. Grimly determined not to drive back with him, still furious at him for tricking her, she stood in the shadows, trying to think what to do. Five miles wasn’t all that far, she decided. She’d walked five miles many a time. She didn’t have a coat to retrieve, not in this heat, and was carrying her handbag. She’d pay for the empty plate out of her wages, if necessary.

Anger carried her along the one and only street of Beeniup at a cracking pace. Apart from the church and its adjacent hall, the town consisted of one general store, a place advertising stock feed and farm supplies, and seven houses. Most people lived out of town on farms, apparently, though she didn’t call this a town, whatever the locals said!

She walked quickly along the road that led to the homestead.

A few minutes later she heard the sound of a car engine behind her and her heart began to pound. She looked round for somewhere to hide. But there were only open fields with wire fences, so she kept on walking, head held high.

Finn stopped the car. ‘Get in, you idiot! There’s no need for you to walk.’

She glared, arms akimbo. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you from now on. How dare you make people think we’re courting?’

He looked at her pleadingly. ‘Because I knew if I didn’t do something, the other blokes would be all over you. I could see the way they were looking at you and…well, I wanted you for myself.’

All the air seemed to vanish from the world. Gracie tried in vain to stay angry. Couldn’t.

He stopped the engine and jumped down.

She couldn’t move, not a step. In the moonlight, Finn looked rather like Douglas Fairbanks, her favourite film star. He was just as handsome. For a moment she wavered, swaying towards him, then she forced herself to turn and start walking again, afraid now of what she might do if he came too close.

He took her by surprise, scooping her up into his arms, laughing softly as she gasped.

‘Let go of me!’ She tried to sound angry, but couldn’t. Of their own volition, her arms slid round his neck. It felt so romantic, so right.

‘I’ll never let you go,’ he said as he set her down gently by the car, helped her inside and closed the door on her side. He got in but didn’t start the engine, just stared ahead, fiddling with the steering wheel.

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